


Agent Stilinski of Shield

by robinguitar



Category: Teen Wolf (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Stiles, Crossover, Everybody Lives, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Slow To Update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-05-25 23:35:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 26,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6214636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinguitar/pseuds/robinguitar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After finally getting their whole group of misfits together as a working pack, Stiles is going to college in New York, working on his magic abilities as a kickass-spark. But then creepy aliens start to drop from the sky. Must be tuesday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Man with a plan (no, not Captain America)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone!  
> So, it's my first story. Yay!  
> Please excuse my mistakes, english isn't my first language and no beta read.  
> But I hope you enjoy it anyway, so thanks for reading and have fun!
> 
> I do not own any characters of Teen Wolf or Marvel's Avengers.

There might have been a moment, when Stiles realized, that the pack they had been building for years (he was invested in that goal more than the others at the beginning, no matter what the puppies were saying _now_ ), was his version of a family. A family containing of more people than him and the Sheriff.

But he also thought about Scott's future in Beacon Hills.

  
That whole Romeo and Juliette thing Scott and Allison had going on, with all these supernatural extras to the story, (like a fucking Hunter Family, _ohmygod_!) was only the beginning of all the reasons for Scott, and possibly in the same moment Stiles, to die before they had a chance to go to college.

And Stiles was working hard for that college goal, for that one ticket out of Beacon Hills. Even when he always planned on coming home, after the chance of education and college life far from all the craziness back home.  
But his brother-from-another-mother needed a strong safety-net for a life without Stiles saving his ass on so many different levels, so that Stiles would have the chance to come home to his pack at one point in the future and not to funerals for the people he grew up with.

Scott wasn't a bad student per se, but he didn't work toward the same goal as Lydia, Danny and Stiles did. He needed a strong pack to have his back no matter what.

  
So Stiles started planning after that whole disastrous kanima thing, where they had lost lifes and chances, partly because they were fighting each other instead of working together.

  
Stiles would never understand, how someone could actually believe, that Lydia Martin would turn into a slimy lizard-person (seriously, Derek?!) and needed to be killed (not that a screaming-bloody-murder banshee had ever been one of his guesses either, but... _nevermind_ ).

  
So after getting his hopes crushed by that cheesy true-love-cure-scene with Jackson and Lydia, licking his wounds after Gerard’s beating-lesson and screwing Scott's head back on the right way (NO SOLO-MISSIONS, DAMN IT!), plotting for the future was his main activity.

 

Things needed to change as soon as possible, before the next big bad decided to pay this damn town a visit or Derek wanting to kill another one of his friends.

  
After the first week of summer and lacrosse-training with Scott, Stiles' plan began with the one thing, he really _really_ hated to do. But he knew his limitations and they needed more adults as allies, to make things easier for a bunch of teenage werewolves and an unexperienced and slightly broken alpha named Derek Hale.

 

"Dad, we need to talk." Stiles sat down on the sofa next to his dad.

These words were every parents nightmare, Noah was sure. He swallowed hard once, feeling nervous about the suddenly tense atmosphere in the living-room.  
The Sheriff turned towards his son, who seemed to be vibrating out of his seat, full of nervous energy. Since Noah had been hoping for this, for the chance that his son would finally talk to him about whatever was going on lately, he shut off the TV and gave Stiles his complete attention. But Stiles stayed silent even after he waited for a minute.

"Stiles, is everything all right?" His son wasn't meeting his eyes and the fading bruises in Stiles' face still gave the Sheriff an uneasy feeling. The feeling of not being able to protect his son, thanks to his lies and bad people in his town.

"That,-I-... that is kind of a loaded question right now....but I wanted to explain what's been going on lately, because I'm _really sorry_ that I caused you so much trouble with the suspension and everything. Okay, kidnapping Jackson was a stupid idea, I know that now and I'm sorry about having it in the first place. I don't want you to think, that you can't trust me anymore, because you _can_! And, and... I need to make this right, so that-"

"Stiles! Stiles, slow down, okay?" The kid looked dangerously close to a panic attack, so he layed a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. "I'm here and I'm listening. You can tell me anything, you know that. But no more lies."

Stiles took a few deep breaths and finally looked at his father.

"Okay, thanks Dad. Sorry for the ramble-attack, I'm... I'm really sorry and nervous and it's kind of a long story, you know? And it's probably a good idea to start at the beginning, I think....."  
One corner of the Sherriff’s mouth quirked slightly at his sons rambling, even if he knew now, that this would finally be the conversation he was hoping for for months. But he also feared that he wouldn't like all that much, what the hell Stiles had been keeping from him. He was found at way too many crime-scenes lately, even if he always had his nose in his father's work out of wrong placed curiosity in the past.

"From the beginning sounds perfect Stiles."

"Yesss, okay. I can do from the beginning, sort of...but I need to do the whole story in one go, Dad. I-...I will answer any questions okay? But.......after, please?" Noah nodded.  "Argh, right, ....here goes nothing."

So Stiles started with the night, he and Scott went out into the woods looking for the missing half of Laura Hale's body.  
He never stopped fidgeting in his place, sometimes even flailing, but he told the whole story to the point of Jackson's miracle werewolf-turning by true love, urgh.  
The Sheriff listened to his story without asking questions or interrupting and Stiles thought his heart might start beating out of his chest after minutes of silence when he'd finished talking.

His father seemed to still work through all the information with a blank expression and Stiles, who's best friend had tried to kill him in the locker room, who had set an alpha on fire and was beaten by a crazy old man, while two of the wolves were being electrocuted, was _never_ more afraid in his life.

He couldn't loose his Dad over this.

Finally Noah rubbed his hands over his face. "That’s a hell of a story Stiles."

"I know Dad, I _know_! And I have proof, if you want! Please Dad, I'm telling the truth here and I really need you to let me show you, before you say anything else."  
His father sighed and made a go-on gesture with his hand.

"Scott, I need you to come in now, buddy." Stiles said, without raising his voice and his eyes never leaving his father’s face.

"Sheriff." Scott stood next to the sofa seconds later, looking equally nervous as Stiles. He was wringing his hands and shifting in place.  
Noah quirked an eyebrow, but his expression stayed blank.

"Scott, have a seat. I'm guessing you want to show me that you're a werewolf?"  
"Yes, Sir. Please don't shoot me, Sir!" Scott sat nervously down on the chair opposite the Stilinskis.

At Scott's words Stiles made some sort of a wheezing sound and again almost flailed from his seat. The Sheriff laid one hand on his son's knee, to keep him in place, but still looked to Scott. He knew his son's best friend as long as Stiles did and he looked terrified. Realizing that he was terrified of him had him froozen in place. And wasn't that like a punch to Johns gut.  
Knowing, that whatever was going on (the werewolf-story was not yet truly worked through by his brain) had Stiles and Scott scared of his reaction, made them lie for months to him and probably Melissa.

"Scott, there will be no shooting anybody, okay? I don't have a gun on me and even if I did, I would never try to shoot you." Noah said as calm as possible.  
Scott' shoulders seemed to drop in a more relaxed state after that and Stiles figured, that he had been listening to his Dad's heartbeat. He was really hoping Scott was using his wolfy-powers for conversations in these sort of panic-inducing situations, so help him God!

Scott looked from Stiles to the Sheriff with his, as Stiles called in his head (and sometimes even outside of it), puppy-dog-eyes.

"Sheriff, we know how crazy this sounds, but Stiles is telling the truth." And with that Scott's face transformed to his beta-shift with weird sideburns and disappearing eyebrows, with glowing golden eyes and he held his now clawed fingers palm up in a none threatening gesture. Or as none-threatening as clawed hands could ever be.

The Sheriff's jaw dropped for a second and his eyes seemed to grow comically wide. But other than that he made no sound or movement, even after Scott turned his face and hands back to normal.  
Both boys were anxiously staring at the Sheriff.

"Daaad? You okay there?"

Noah blinked a few times, face turning blank once more and stood up, followed by both teenagers.

"I need a drink." He left the room to return with a bottle of whiskey in one and a glass in the other hand, sitting back down on the sofa, he prepared himself a drink and downed it in one go. Stiles and Scott exchanged a questioning look and after Stiles shrugged his shoulders helplessly, both slowly sat back down again.

The Sheriff prepared himself another drink, but only took one sip, before looking to them. "So, werewolves.... Seriously?"

Both boys were nodding nervously. The Sheriff took another sip, clinging to his glass and working through the information for a few minutes in complete silence.

"Actually, now that I think about it, that story filled a lot of gaps in some cases of the last few months. Even the Hale-Fire, .... God, it made no sense at the time, why not one of the remaining people in the house made it out that door."

Noah took a bigger gulp of whiskey this time, wincing slightly because of the burning in his throat.

  
Not to question his damn hope, that his father might believe them on the first try, but...

"Dad, are you sure? I...I mean do you believe us?"

Noah put his glass on the coffee table and sighed. "Stiles, no matter what you think, I know, when you are lying to me. And this? This was the most honest conversation I've had with you in a long time."

Scott sighed relieved and leaned back in his chair, while Stiles stared at his dad with slightly shimmering eyes. When the Sheriff seemed to smile a little bit, Stiles threw his arms around his father’s neck and mumbled into his shoulder.  
"Oh thank God! Dad, I'm so so sorry about everything and the lying to you, I wanted to protect you, I'm sorry!"

Noah rubbed his sons back, while holding him tight. "Shh, Stiles. It's okay, calm down, son."

After Stiles clapped his Dad on the back in a slightly more manly way, than the desperate clinging from a few moments ago, Noah leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, looking at both boys with a serious expression.

„I’m not happy about a lot of the things that have been happening. And both of your actions in some parts, but we will figure this out, okay? You did the best you could to help your friends and I am proud of you in equal parts. But NO more lying, no more dangerous solo-missions, we will figure this out _together_ , right?" They both nodded, looking down.  "Scott, can you call Melissa to come over here after her shift?"

And so they planned together, how to make the best of a bad situation and to help the rest of the wolves. It wasn't exactly easy to get everyone on the same page and to get Scott to except Derek as his alpha. But over the summer they made it happen, even if it was just the start.

Jackson moved to London and Lydia had a hard time to find her new place in the world without hiding, how smart she really was and learning to control her banshee-powers.  
Boyd and Erica returned beaten by the alpha-pack, but willing to be part of a pack with all of them. And the Sheriff took Derek under his wing, helping him to be a leader to his pack, while earning their respect.  
Scott and Allison got back together after Allison's time in France with her father and even Chris came around to the new system to help keeping their children as safe as possible.

So after years of fighting with different creatures, rival packs, the alpha-pack and the darach, all the while keeping up with schoolwork and pack-training, the Hale-McCall-pack of Beacon-Hills became a strong, united family.

Okay, creepy-uncle-Peter wasn't to be trusted completely, but damn he had some useful information sometimes.

The nogitsune-possession took Stiles a long time to work through; Allison's near death left them all a little bit broken. But they helped each other grieving, forgiving and how to carry on.

Even though panic-attacks and nights spent counting his fingers made Stiles feel weak and exhausted, his father and his pack never left him alone with his doubts and his fears about still being trapped in his own body by an evil fox-spirit. And he got over his crush on Lydia, even though they became incredible close. She was surprisingly tactile with all of them after a while, but especially Stiles. And he couldn't be happier about their platonic relationship.

Life went on, the pack grew with finding Cora in the bank vault. Kira, Malia, Liam and Mason were the youngest additions to the pack, after the Dread Doctors and Theo made senior year a painfull experience.

So the plan worked, more or less. The pack was stable, save in numbers and led by a Hale-Alpha and True Alpha.

  
And Stiles was after graduation finally ready to face New-York for his first semester at NYU.


	2. Definitly NOT legal aliens!

College-life was definitely romanticized due to hollywood-made clichés, but that didn't mean Stiles wasn't having a very good time.

  
His dorm-roommate George was easy-going, most of the time stoned and his day-and night-rhythm was totally different to Stiles. They became the perfect roommates.

Stiles' routine was practical and partly the best and most productive way to work with his ADHD, so a lot of things stayed the way, they were in high school. The morning to visit his courses, afternoon to study and the rest of the day for whatever needed to be done.

He wasn't the keg-party-type thanks to his daily Adderall medication, but he enjoyed that part of college night-life none the less. But the smaller pubs near the campus were much more his scene, than any frat-party could ever be.

  
He had friends, who he liked to go out with, study-partners that didn't mind his jittery brain and his antics, and _thank God_ , the flailing limbs became much calmer in time.  
Even his plaid-shirts-style was trained out of him before going to New York, by Lydia and Erica joining forces in senior-year.

But whatever he dreamed of once, the crazy he wanted to leave behind while being in college? That stuff totally didn't stay home.

And that was okay, really.  
Because the whole spark-thing he had going on at the rave with the mountain-ash-circle and believe-part back in Beacon Hills? Now that turned out to be a much bigger deal, than Deaton let on.  
Fuck Deaton, his way with mysterious half-information and speaking in riddles was one of the things, that the adults of the pack took care of.  
Not that Deaton turned into a supernatural-wikipedia after talking to Stiles' Dad or anything, but he became much more helpful, after the packs were united and worked out how to be a unit.

And thanks to flowing information from everyone involved and astoundingly Deaton’s slightly creepy sister Morell, the Nematon was healed after the nogitsune was taken care of, even thanks to creepy-uncle-Peter and his connections to a coven of witches.

Deaton was the emissary of Thalia Hale, but he wasn't Derek’s. But his goal always seemed to be Scott and the true-alpha situation could have gone a lot more badly, if Deaton and Stiles had not set Scott and Derek down, to work everything out. They were able to share the position as Alpha, which was unheard of.

After the first confrontation with the alpha-pack, Stiles and Deaton worked on his ability to control mountain-ash. Deaton told Stiles to meditate to quieten his brain, so he would be able to concentrate on believing.

The first attempts were non-surprisingly catastrophic, but help came _very_ surprisingly in form of Derek Hale.

_"Stiles, what are you doing?"_

_Stiles was sitting cross legged on one of the vet's examination tables, trying to concentrate and to stop thinking, about everything._  
_Derek's sudden voice pretty much had him jumping in his skin._

_"Whoa! Bells! I will give everyone bells, if you don't stop trying to give me a heart attack, man!"_

_Derek quirked one eyebrow. "What.Are.You.Doing? You were supposed to be at my place an hour ago and your phone seems to be turned off."_

_"Ah, shit, ...really? What time is it?"_

_"It's after six, Stiles. Everyone is waiting for movie-night and you were supposed to bring the pizza."_

_"Pizza, yes! Sorry, I will stop at the diner and be there as fast as I can. Man, this whole meditation-thing only has me sleeping in a sitting position."_

_Stiles jumped from the table, only to lose control over his numb legs and to fall to the floor in an ungraceful heap. And he could swear he heard Derek snort, asshole!_

_"Ow, ow, ow. Oh come on! I suck at this. Who thought this was a good idea? Not me!" he said, while trying to bring is limbs back under control and into a standing position._

_"You were meditating." That sounded more like a statement than question, but Stiles had the feeling, he was supposed to answer anyway._

_"Aehm, yes?" Aaand that came out as a question, Stiles tried to shake his head back into the game. Conversations with Derek might be easier now than a few months back, because the shoving into hard surfaces had mostly stopped. But he still expected pain in order to exchange information with Derek most of the time._

_Derek did that whole eyebrow-expression-thingy again and Stiles was kind of envious about how much the wolf could express without words. Not that he would ever tell._

_The next day Derek showed up to Stiles' meditation training at Deaton's office and brought him into the woods near the newly rebuild Hale-house and after a few days Stiles was finally able to meditate the shit out of his constantly vibrating self without falling asleep or thinking about anything._

_And Stiles learned that as a spark, nature was his all-time-buddy._  
_How Derek seemed to figure that out and not Deaton, he didn't know. But he was grateful. Because for the first time there seemed to be progress instead of frustration with being a spark. That made the believing-part of his magic equally easier._

_When he performed his first mountain-ash-tricks inside the vet's, it was hard to manipulate circles around Scott._

_But when on his first try outside next to the rebuild Hale-house, while the pack was training, he managed to not only build a circle around Scott, but around every single werewolf near to him with only a handful of the ash, tables turned._

 

With time, experimentation and practice, Stiles learned to trap whatever he wanted with mountain-ash, even humans.  
And so skinny, defenceless Stiles turned into the packs secret weapon in the fight against the alpha-pack and later the darach.

Magic definitely rocks!  
But it also proved, that Stiles magic-ability seemed to be much stronger, then Deaton expected. He wasn't equipped to teach Stiles everything, so they made plans for his time at college. Powerful witches or mages were much easier to find in the big cities, than in a small-town like Beacon-Hills.  
And Stiles later held contact to the witch-coven from L.A. that had healed the Nematon and they were very willing to help him learn about his magic.

So in between studying folklore and mechanical-engineering at NYU, living the good life of a college-student, Stiles worked part-time at a bookshop named Bournes and Sons (No, Stiles has not yet dared to ask the Sons-question to the seemingly son-less owner).

Of course the owner of said bookshop was slightly crazy, looked like The Dude but with better clothes. Aaaand he was a pretty powerful magical being, not that Stiles had figured any kind of label to put on the guy. Yet. Maybe one day.

Thomas Bournes' bookshop might have seem like a nice little cover for magic in plain sight, like an antique-shop or something equally cliché, where normal people didn't wander into very often and hexed brooms made the actual work of cleaning all by themselves.

But _of course_ , that wasn’t' what happened at Bournes. That shop was fucking busy like all the time. Stiles afternoon shift was in no way relaxing, no matter if he was working the counter or the shelves.

Even the archives (and YES magical archives were a thing too, yay!) needed every bit of his attention to not cause any kind of trouble, like letting demons out of books (Oh Willow, thanks for the warning!) or dropping unknown artefacts and ending the world, totally by accident!

But Stiles loved working there, no questions asked.  
Because on a slightly more geek-related pro to working at Bournes and Sons,  
It was only a few buildings away from the gigantic Stark-Tower!

Stiles was a fan of Tony Stark and his snark. And of course the chance to see that gorgeous red and gold suit of armor flying by a few times a month. Sooo worth it!

He even managed to take a decent pic with his phone one time, which was send to his pack members. Because IRON MAN!!! Scott was definitely the most understanding one in the pack for his nerd-on.

So life was good, studying worked better than expected and he had pack (for life, if he was getting his way) in Beacon Hills and MIT (Go Lydia!) and Berkley (Go Danny!).

Being a magical spark was cool (most of the time, magical exhaustion _sucked_ , ladies and gentleman!) and his stressful job kind of fit in perfectly. He even had a date tonight with Stephanie, they met at a poetry-slam-night at his favourite pub and seemed to have the same opinion on poetry-slams (Stiles had made a drinking-game out of listening to emos, who were suffering from life) and Stephanie, sat at the bar next to him, had understood the rules without being told.

BUT, somehow Stiles Stilinski must have jinxed his life big time.  
Because while he was at work that afternoon before his hopefully awesome date, freaking Aliens dropped out of the sky.


	3. Magic, man! It ain't easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the kudos and comments! The support is incredible!  
> I will try to update at least weekly, if inspiration and life will allow it!

Stiles was working the archives, because Thomas Bournes was out of town and the latest shipment needed to be seen through. It was never wise to leave a shipment with magical stuff unattended; Stiles learned that the hard way in his first week of working at Bournes.

While Thomas was a great mentor and answered any questions Stiles had, he also liked to let his students learn about magic by making their own mistakes.  
Instructed tasks were clearly formulated, but rarely supervised and you never knew what dangers could come out of the simple tasks.

 

He felt relatively lucky, that the shipment seemed to include only herbs and freaky ingredients, so the risk of creepy surprises, like moving mummy-hands, because it came in touch with the right herb to be brought back to life (Yes, Addams Family's Thing was legit, he had had a hand shaped bruise for _weeks_ on his throat), was unlikely.

 

So when he felt the earth kind of vibrating, his first thought was naturally about some supernatural shit going on, because maybe the shipment was damaged and probably things, that should never be touching, were being friendly and causing trouble.

 

But the vibrating thing happened again before he could decide, if he should make his way to safety or continue to unpack, and the first screams came definitely from upstairs.  
Giving the crate one last glance and not seeing anything that would explain the vibrating of the whole building, Stiles raced up the stairs to the ground floor.

And wasn't that a sight of the damn human species. While the streets seemed to have turned into a warzone with weird flying monster-thingies with blue glowing weapons, the humans stood gawking at the window front of the shop.

Except for Stile's co-workers David and Millie, both being involved in the supernatural world somehow. Millie was a shapeshifter, though Stiles had never seen her shifted form, but he always thought of some kind of bird, when looking at her with her fast moving head and sharp gaze.

David worked fulltime for Mr Bournes and was a druid in the making. At least half-assed answers seemed to only apply for Deaton, because David was the chatty kind of guy that the customers loved, because he knew the regulars by name.

They at least knew how to react accordingly to life-threatening dangers and were hiding behind a shelve and the counter.

So time for damage control.  
"Come on people! Move away from the windows and hide!" Stiles started herding the people into the back. There was a nearly windowless break-room for the staff, big enough for all of them to hide out of sight and it was the safest distance for the moment from the fight outside.

He was just starting to make a plan in his head, what he needed to do next when he heard the crashing of glass from the front.

"All right, close the door behind me, stay quiet and down and don't come out until I or the authorities tell you to, understood?" Millie had a sombre expression, but nodded. She would keep them safe.

Stiles moved crouched down to the front. Luckily the window was only broken, but none of the weird monsters had entered the shop yet. He worked quickly by shielding the building with his magic, one of the first things he mastered to be able to protect his pack. It came naturally and he knew he could keep the shield up for a long time without exhausting his core.

He tugged at his pack bonds mentally to make sure everyone was okay, but couldn't find anything out of order. As if on cue his phone started vibrating in his pocket and he fished it out seeing Derek's grumpy face staring back at him.

"What' up, sourwolf?" Stiles cringed at his slightly too high voice.

"Stiles!" Oh! That was growling Derek, never a good thing.  
Of course there was crashing and screaming outside loud enough for werewolves to hear.  
"What the hell is going on? Where are you?!" Loud growling never made anything better either.

"Well,... I'm at work of course and apparently the world has gone crazy, while I was working the archives downstairs and now there seems to be a warzone in New York or they're shooting some movie with a hell of a budget for special effects and makeup.  
Derek, is there a warzone with flying ugly monster-thingies in Beacon-Hills?"

Sarcasm, okay! He knew deep down it wasn't the time and not his only weapon anymore, but habit man, habit! It's a bitch to fight.

"No Stiles, there are no flying monsters here." He could hear the eye roll, which _rude_!

"But it seems like a big hole over New York opened up and started spiting them out. The news say it's aliens and they keep on coming..."

"Well, thank God for small mercies then. At least you guys are safe - or safe-ish. Sooo any idea how to fight an alien? Tips, experiences you would like to share at the moment?"  
To know that this crap was only happening here calmed him down the tiniest bit.

"Are you safe? Can you shield yourself?" Derek's voice lost the growling at least, he sounded concerned, which was still weird to hear, but also strangely comforting.

"Yeah, kind of. They smashed the window front, but I put a shield on the whole building and I'm really praying here, that the same rules apply to aliens as to the big bad of the week. I don't really want to find out, how to fight one of these."

And to top the current shitstorm there was a creepy whale sound, followed by some gigantic being, which flew past the building. Oh, and more aliens jumping of the whale, great! Stiles could feel the tug, where it would have rammed into the first and probably the second floor of the building he was in, but the shield deflected the crash.

"STILES!" Okay, he may have overheard part of the conversation on Derek's side, but who could blame him? Flying aliens and whale-turtle-somethings! What the hell was happening?

"Sorry! I'm here, still save! The shield is holding, there are even bigger alien-whales flying around and they are kind of breaking the buildings by flying into them."

He had crawled to the shelves nearest to the broken windows and tried to get a better view, while listening to Derek panicking and telling him to stay safe.

But the view was not good, definitely not good. There were people running wild, trying to get to safety with parts of buildings falling down on them and stuff being blown up and damn...  
Derek knew how Stiles ticked and he could never ever stand by and watch people getting hurt. If he would survive this.., whatever this was, Derek would kill him. So he might as well make it count.

"I will try to stay as safe as I can, but I need to do something, right? There a people out there!"  
"Stiles, no! You don't have to do anything, you don't have any backup, so don't be stupid!.."

There was no way, Derek would want Stiles to get involved in a fight this big, even though he knew what kind of power his pack mate had. He came such a long way as an alpha, always looking out for everyone's happiness and safety.  
So this would hurt him and everyone else in the pack would be mad about this too, no matter if he made it out okay.

But people were dying, and that was not something he could watch without doing everything in his power.

 

"I'm sorry, but I have to go..." and he hung up, feeling the panic and anxiety of Derek through their bond. Breathing in deep he gave up on his hiding spot.

His phone started vibrating again the moment he stuffed it back into his pocket, but he ignored it.

He groaned loudly. "Great! Now I'm the one doing stupid solo-missions. I am _so_ dead, when Dad finds out."

Making sure the shield was still intact and staying strong, putting another protection-shield on himself, Stiles stood straight and stepped out onto the streets.


	4. The Battle of New York

So there was backup! Yay!

  
Iron Man was fighting alongside a strange group of people. But Stiles recognized the star-spangled man - Captain freaking America! And wasn't that a reason for a freak out of the nerd-variety on a later date. He kinda wished he could take a picture for Erica.

There was also a redhead fighting like a ninja in a cat-suit (Lydia will love this!), some bow-and-arrow guy, that reminded him of a male version of Allison, a massive green monster wearing only pants, that could roar like an alpha werewolf and some flying dude with a hammer and impressive arms. And a red cape, .... _seriously?!_

Stiles stayed near the shop, dodging enemy-fire and flying debris and helping people off the streets into the warded shop. He got his magic to only let the humans in, with a very short try-and-error-phase, but eventually it worked.

But after a pretty short while the aliens noticed, that he was unaffected by their weapons and began to attack him directly with brutal force.  
So he had to figure out how to knock out aliens for real, which was easier, than he guessed, but hitting them with magical energy did the trick. How awesome was that?

And it looked kinda cool how he was throwing blue balls of light around and the bad guys dropped dead.  
By doing so the rest of team-earth, as he began to call the strange group of fighting individuals in his head, accepted him into their ranks.  
Okay, that might have been exaggerated, but at least no one was trying to fight him or to tell him to get lost.

Captain America was pushed into Stiles' line of fire once and deflected one of the energy-balls with his shield.

"Sorry, Captain! My bad! “He cringed.

"It's all right son, thanks for lending a hand in the fight with your....whatever it is you are firing. Don't die." And with that the Captain jerked his head in a nod once and jumped back into the fight by throwing his shield into a group of aliens and sprinting off. Heroes, man. They had style!

Stiles might have been gaping fish-like for a second there, but hey! Captain America! Scott will be so jealous.

The fight went on and he saw glimpses of his backup-team of badasses, but he didn't stray far from Bournes, to hold up the shield around the building.

One alien came close to be able to knock him out from behind, but was eliminated by an arrow straight into his brain the moment Stiles turned around.  
That was some first class aim there, ladies and gentleman!

And it felt kinda homey to fight with an archer having his back.

He was able to return the favour moments later, by helping out ninja-lady with some very close call, while she was fighting a whole group of the freaks at once. The received nod for his help was kinda nice, but he would never make the mistake of thinking, that the redhead didn't have the situation under control.

The adrenaline let him push his body and his magic farther than he should be able to, but he was also aware, that he couldn't go on much longer without exhausting his magical core and his body. And that kind of hangover was a bitch to deal with for days.

He heard Iron Man nearing his position, after becoming used to the sounds of his suit today and saw him carrying some kind of missile on his back to the direction of the tower.  
"What the fuck?"  
There was no time to wonder about that, he needed to concentrate on what he was doing. His hand-to-hand training of the last years came in handy today, but his strength was only due to magical amplifying of his punches enough, to deflect the blows he received on a permanent basis.  
His muscles ached and he began to feel the exhaustion creeping in.

 

But from one second to the other the monsters dropped dead like their strings had been cut, all at once. Stumbling on the spot by the sudden stillness of the fight, Stiles turned around to make sure, but there was no movement anymore from any alien creature.

He heard an incredible roar that reminded him of a furry red-eyed alpha and made the small hairs on his neck stand up. But after that it was weirdly still for the moment.

After a few more minutes of taking deep breaths to calm himself the fuck down, and eyeing his enemies for any movement, he made his way back into the bookstore. The people he had send inside, were nowhere to be seen, but he had a feeling, that Mellie and David brought them into the staff-room too.

"Mellie? It's Stiles! You can come out now; the fighting seems to be over."  
The door opened slowly and he came face to face with Mellie’s big blue eyes and a fearful expression on her face. But after looking behind him and apparently not seeing anything horrible, she opened the door fully and tadaaa, now the room was pretty packed with people.

David was helping an injured woman with a nasty looking cut on her forehead. The first aid kit for the staff was impressive, but papercuts _are_ kinda nasty.

Everyone looked extremely shaken, but nobody was badly injured, thank God.

"Stiles, what the hell happened out there?"

Shrugging one shoulder helplessly he had only a one worded explanation.  
"Aliens."  
"Huh...you sure?" He nodded. " I didn't see that one coming."  
Her dry response startled a choked of laugh from him and he could feel himself slightly shaking. But he had time for a breakdown later.

He rubbed his hands over his face, looking back to the front.  
"It's still kind of a warzone out there, but without the fighting and explosions and stuff. We should maybe stay inside until the authorities show up to tell us it's safe to actually go out there again."

Some people nodded, others seemed to be lost in their heads after everything that happened. But slowly a few made their way to the front to peer cautiously out the broken windows.  
Mellie took his hand shortly and squeezed once, possibly realizing the relatively unharmed state of the shop.  
"Thank you! “ She whispered quietly but heartfelt.  
"You're welcome. Let's hope, it's over. Whatever this was."

After the cops, paramedics and official looking men in black started to herd the people away from the ruined streets and the store was empty, Stiles dropped exhausted into one of the reading chairs and pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes.  
The whole thing didn't feel surreal or something, he was still used to fighting for his life and others in critical situations, thanks to his life at home.

But the reality of aliens brought a whole new level of horror into the world and he wasn't quite able, to wrap his head around that.  
There were already enough bad guys and monsters on earth, no need to get visits from out of space, thank you very much.

The vibrating of his phone had him flailing hard. But he didn't need to check caller ID to know, who would be calling.

"I'm fine!" And there was definitely more than one voice shouting his name on the other end of the line.

"Thank God! “ His father’s voice came through, as did other relieved sounds from various people. Great, he had the whole pack worried.

"Stiles, what happened?" That was Scott, but he could imagine his pack hovering around the phone with him on speaker.

"An alien-invasion like the news said, I guess. They were kind of destroying anyone and anything. I don't know, it was all kinds of fucked-up..."

"You okay?" Derek sounded concerned. Aww man. Worrywolf.

"I'm fine, really. Not a scratch, I swear! I'm kind of exhausted though, so a bed sounds like my next destination ...if the building with my dorm still stands, that is."

And wasn't that a terrifying thought! He had no idea how far the damage reached, how bad the city got hit. Oh man, the shaking was kinda worse now.

"The news say, the damage stayed mostly inside of Manhattan around Stark-Tower, apparently the wormhole was directly over it."  
And wasn't it exactly like Lydia, to follow his train of thought without a problem.

"Small mercies then. Though from the looks of it Manhattan seems to be in pieces."

"Yeah, you can see chunks of buildings being deflected by your shield. That looked kind of freaky, man." Liam sounded impressed, if Stiles had to guess.  
Aaand his brain catched up.

"Wait, you could see? How the hell did you see that?!"

His father sighed. "Well son, you're on national television. Some video-footage is being replayed on the news of everything that happened and you're on it."

"OH COME ON! Who the hell had time to make videos while being in the middle of an alien-invasion ?! Huh?"  
Stiles threw his hands up and then pinched the bridge of his nose.  
The human race was really trying to annoy him today.

„The footage is shaky at best. You're in the background and I don't think, other people can really notice the shield protecting you. There is a lot of movement in the clip and it's from some distance. The magical energy you threw around could be explained by a weapon similar to the ones, the aliens were using. Calm down."

And that sounded at least a little reassuring to him. Lydia wasn't known to soften a blow.

„Did your shield protect the bookstore or the whole building?"

"The whole building. I couldn't risk it collapsing on top of the people inside. And the archives. That alone might lead to the end of the world, who knows..."

"I agree. But it might be kind of noticeable, that the building you fought in front of is in no way as damaged, as the rest so close to Stark Tower. You should get out of there, before someone makes the connection to Bournes."

"Yeah, I guess I should. I'll talk to you, when I'm back in my room."

"Okay, be careful Stiles. I'm glad you're okay."

"Thanks Dad. I'll talk to you later."

There would be a lot more yelling on the next call, he was sure.

 

He closed shop, left Thomas a message about the situation and the damage and left through the backdoor. Pushing the hood of his jacket over his head to slightly hide his face, he made his way towards his dorm. He joined a group of people, that were being lead to a police-barrier and got lost in the crowd. Everything he saw was destruction and chaos. Worst were the dead and he tried, not to look too closely. But he saw enough nightmare-material that made him sick to his stomach.

So many people died today and they didn't even know why.

Homesickness hit him hard, for his pack and Beacon Hills. But there was no way home right now and he was too old to run from the horrors of life.  
Stiles knew he would have to deal with this, like every other person in New York.  
He just wished he wouldn't have to deal with it alone.


	5. Hide and Seek

There was a ringing noise, bringing him out of his sleep of the dead, but slowly.

Face still smashed into his pillow, Stiles fumbled for his phone on his bedside table.

"Hum wharhg?" He wasn't quite awake enough to actually form sentences.

"Stiles!" Oh crap! Derek sounding pissed was like a bucket of ice-water.

"I'm up, I'm up!" Slowly bringing himself into a sitting position, Stiles leaned against the headboard, rubbing his eyes with one hand and trying to adjust his sight to the darkness. Hm, darkness?

"You were supposed to call, when you got to your dorm-room!"

Checking the time he realized it was close to midnight, so he must have slept through the whole evening.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "I kinda fell face first on the bed and that's the last thing I remember." Stiles let his head fall back against the headboard and immediately groaned deeply. He had a headache as big as Texas and felt, like he'd ran a marathon. The magical exhaustion could have been much worse after today, if he was being honest, but it still sucked.

"Are you okay? You said you weren't injured."

"Yeah, I wasn't. But I have a major headache. And everything kind of hurts." He knew he was whining, but couldn't care at the moment.

"That sounds like magical exhaustion. How bad are we talking?" Derek had lowered his voice majorly and Stiles was extremely grateful.

"Eeh, something between the fight with the pixies last summer and the creepy witch from hell. Don't worry; tomorrow I should be much better."

Derek sighed. "Okay, but you should save your energy in the next couple of days. Don't let it get any worse."

"I won’t. The dorm is undamaged and I will definitely sleep a lot. Even my roommate is out of town this week, so peace and quiet it is. And thanks for the lack of yelling, by the way."

Derek made a noise and Stiles would swear it sounded like a chuckle, if he wasn't so out of it. No yelling was nice, no need to aggravate a werewolf.

"Oh, there will be yelling, but not from me. I'm not happy about your decision to jump into a battle unprepared, you know that. But I also know what you are capable of and that you know your own limits. Your Dad and Scott might see that differently though."

"Ah, joy. At least I don't have to see Scott's disappointment-face over the phone. But thank you for the vote of confidence."

And again with the soft chuckling. So people _did_ get used to his sort of humour in time! It might have taken years though.

"I will tell everyone to leave you alone until tomorrow afternoon. Now sleep. Check in, if anything comes up."

"Will do, nighty night, sourwolf."

"Go to sleep, Stiles."

The next time consciousness came upon him, the pounding in his head had lessened, but the crick in his neck and his much stiffer limbs had him groaning again. His body needed sustenance and definitely a shower.  
After the excessive use of hot water to help with the muscle aches, Stiles took his messenger-bag and made the short walk to his favourite coffee shop. The world might have nearly ended only a day ago, but nobody would deprive New Yorkers of their caffeine-fix, without the fear of horrible consequences.

Sipping the first coffee, Stiles grabbed his second to-go-cup and the baked goods to enjoy them in his room. But before he could take the first bite of his croissant, his damn phone started ringing again.  
Already expecting his father or Scott to call, he was surprised to read Mr Bournes' name, flashing on his screen.

"Hey boss! You're back or still on a secret mission somewhere you wouldn't tell me?"

"Mr Stilinski, I was indeed able to return earlier, though it is difficult to get into the city, after what happened yesterday. I received your message and are relieved, that you seem to be well."

He could hear his boss' smirk clearly. Stiles had never seen anything that could ruffle Mr Bourne’s feathers. That guy was Zen all the way.

"Ahh, but I bet they couldn't keep you away from your bookstore, even if they tried, could they?"

He was sure, that Thomas was the most powerful magic user he had ever met. If he didn't want to be seen, he wouldn't be. A trick Stiles would very much like to learn himself.

"I'm still in one piece, thanks. But you might want to call someone about the window front. I would have tried it with magic, but it seemed kind of obvious."

"That was a wise choice. Though it might also have been wiser, not to appear on television while fighting by throwing magical energy around, yes?"

"Aww, you saw that too? My pack said, I wasn't recognizable enough, but I'm beginning to doubt that," Stiles grumbled.

Thomas laughed lightly. "It is true, that you cannot be seen clearly. But as I understand, by what Mellie told me, the people you saved and the Avengers were very much able to see you and your abilities quite clearly."

"Avengers?"

"Yes, the media is torn about these people. They were fighting against the aliens called Chitauri , but while some call them heroes, others are appalled by the amount of destruction they caused while doing so. You might know about their leader, Captain America?"

"Ahh, team earth, yeah. They were impressive and I actually think they saved the day and also had my back out there. So I'm on the hero-side in this debate."

"Have you heard or read the news yet? There are some speculations, that Iron Man flew a nuke into the wormhole to destroy the enemy and to save New York from a nuclear catastrophe much bigger than any destruction caused by the fight. And he even managed to make it out alive while his team closed the wormhole. It sounds like a very heroic action to me."

"Holy shit... that was a nuke? I saw him carrying a missile, but I had no idea."

Everything could have been so much worse. Someone with enough power to launch a nuclear bomb had made the decision to turn the city and who knew how much more of America into dust, just to stop an alien-invasion. Stiles didn't know how to wrap his head around that. The thought about the number of losses in case of a sucessful detonation had his stomach in knots and bile rising.

He had made the decision to fight for himself, but his death and the death of so many other people had been out of his control anyway. If he would ever meet Tony Stark in person, the man deserved his gratitude and probably a hug.

"The Avengers operate in name of a goverment-organization named SHIELD.  
It is only a matter of time until they will identify you. There are high-ranking members of SHIELD that know about the supernatural, but their knowledge is only superficial."

Stiles jumped in surprise, as he realized that the words were coming from right next to him. And Mr Bounrnes looked kind of smug, bastard!

"Whoa! Don't do that!" At least there was no shrieking on his part.

"Mr Stilinski, you should be more aware of your surroundings."

"Now you sound like Derek, why do you people like to scare me to death?"  
Stiles stuffed the phone back into his hoodie, threw his now empty cup into the garbage and took a large gulp of the next one.

Mr Bournes led him into the next alley, talking quitely while observing their surroundings. He mumbled a quick silence-spell before focusing his attention back to his student. Stiles was leaning against the wall, taking bites of his croissant and quirking one eyebrow at his boss's antics.

"Only because we care. We need a plan of action. Your doorm-room is under surveillance and the first agent will make contact with you as soon as you return."

Stiles was standing straight instantly, checking their surroundings and willing his heart not to beat out of his chest.  
He usually could sense, if he was being watched or followed. But he was still not back to full power.

"What do I do? Hide? Play dumb? Cooperate? Are they going to dissappear me?"

"I do not know their intentions. But I doubt playing dumb would get you far through an interrogation. We are talking about trained spys after all."

"Thanks. How reassuring! Okay, now that I'm officially freaking out could we start planning?"

"Do you need anything from your room or," Mr Bournes asked slightly amused, "is there any incriminating evidence we need to take with us?"

He had too much fun with the situation for Stiles liking.

"Nope, my roomate George likes to snoop when he is stoned. I've got everything important with me." He tapped his fingers against his bag.  
"So I'm going into hiding or what?"

"In a matter of speaking, yes. But sooner or later you will have to deal with SHIELD. I would like to train you for the situation beforehand. You should also talk with your father and pack about how much information you should give them. I might be overreacting and they are only interested in some sort of alliance, but you should better be prepared for the alternative."

Stiles dumped his now empty cup and paperbag into a trash-can, rubbed his hands over his thighs and took a deep breath.

"All right. Let's do this."

Mr Bournes nodded in approval, put his hands on Stile's shoulders and they disappeared into thin air.

On a rooftop nearby Hawkey blinked twice and let out a quiet but heartfelt "Fuck, I hate magic.", and tapped his comm once.

"Cap, we have a problem. I lost Stilinski."


	6. The Cabin in the Woods

One month!

One fucking month Mr Bournes trained Stiles, until he declared him ready for whatever SHIELD had in mind for him. And Stiles was exhausted, grumpy and sooo hungry.

He had to stay in the archives for the whole time of his training. He missed the sun, curly fries, his father and his friends. He even missed college, though he took online-courses to not fall behind.  
But his heart wasn't behind his education at the moment. Would he get to study normaly again or would he have to run from SHIELD indefintely?  
Maybe he should try to grow a beard and become a hermit.

Okay, he was being a tiny bit dramatic.

Right now he was in a cabin in the woods where Mr Bournes had teleported him this morning, like the good Dumbledore he was. Some of the wolves were supposed to meet him there any minute now and he was crawling out of his skin, because he was not allowed to go outside. They would come on foot through the woods, so they could not be followed by humans.

Ah, dear freedom. So near, but still so far out off his reach.

He wasn't really allowed anything until after this meeting.  
They couldn't trust modern technology because of fucking SHIELD and this would be the first time in weeks he would talk to one of his packmates.  
And Stiles was so done.

He had worked his ass off learning hiding-spells, illusions, teleportation (he could do a small distance like a pro) and a thousand more things.  
And now he only wanted to sit on his Dad's couch, eat curly fries and watch movies with his friends without constantly looking over his shoulder.

Was that too much to ask?

Finally the door burst open and Scott did not stop until he had Stiles in a bone-crushing hug. And Stiles hugged him back with all his might, not caring about not being able to breathe for the moment.  
But seconds later more people crushed into them and they all toppled laughing to the floor.

"STILES!"  
"SCOTT!"  
"STILES!"  
"PUPPIES!"

And yes, they were laughing and lying on the floor in a massive heap of limbs and someones knee or elbow was poking him in the ribs, but Stiles, he really couldn't care less!  
The packbonds were vibrating full of happiness and he hadn't felt so free and excited in weeks.

Derek stood leaning against the doorframe, as Stiles caught his gaze and had a exasperated-but-fond expression on his face.

"Okay, get up, you dorks!"

Erica, Boyd, Isaac, Malia and Liam jumped to their feet first, while Stiles and Scott were still grinning at each other.

After they also managed to get up off the floor, Derek hugged Stiles for a short moment and they made their way to the table.

After everyone was finally sitting, still grinning, Scott was the first to speak.

"Dude, ......Captain America?"  
"I KNOW! How awesome is that, man?"

"I will never understand how your brains work." Derek dropped his head into his hands, while the rest of them laughed.

"Alright, alright! How are you guys? How is my Dad? What did I miss?"

"There was nothing supernatural in the last few weeks, your Dad is fine, but he misses you," Derek answered.

"Yeah, it was actually kinda boring," Liam added.

Erica smiled wide, "Liam had a date with Hayden!"

Liam blushed and ducked his head, while everone laughed and Stiles clapped him on the back.

"Good for you buddy, good for you!"

"What did you do? Your boss didn't tell us much beside the fact, that we could not contact you." Isaac looked at him interested.

"That's because he's a slave-driver," Stiles chuckled, "he had me training the whole time and when I was too exhausted for the magical stuff, I needed to work on my paper. I didn't think laying low would be so much hard work."

"You are okay though, right?," Scott asked concerned.

"Yes, I'm fine! It wasn't all bad, but it sucked being kind of grounded from life. I definitly need that to change or I am going crazy! Not Eichen-House-crazy, but like talking-to-myself-crazy, you know?"

"That sounds exactly like Eichen-House-crazy," Malia said confused.

And Stiles let his head fall down on the table.

"Yeah, I'm afraid it really does....," he sighed.

Scott gripped his shoulder, "We will find a way around the straight-jacket, Stiles. You are usally the one with the good plan, no offense Derek."

"None taken. Stiles, what information do you have?"

Stiles sat up straight and leaned back in his chair.

"Mr Bournes thinks, that I have been identified by SHIELD, a goverment organization full of spies and apparently they work with the Avengers, who saw me fight. The day after the invasion they had my room under surrveilance and Mr Bournes brought me to the archives, which I have left today for the first time since then. He doesn't know, what they want or if they are friendly."

Liam and Malia were slightly growling at his last words, but stopped after Derek glared at them.

"Do they know about the supernatural?," Boyd asked.

"Some of the high-ranking people do, but my boss says, they don't know much. The question is, how and if I am going to explain what I can do and if I should leave everything else out completely."

"But you're the worst liar I know."

"Well thanks, Catwoman!"

"You're welcome!"

"Erica is right Stiles. If they question you and have more information than we are aware of, things could turn bad very fast."

"Yeah, but it was my decision to go out there and help in any way I could. That doesn't mean I'm going to drag everyone with me. If they don't have any idea about werewolves, we should keep it that way."

"I agree," Scott said, " we shouldn't give them any information, they don't already have. If we can keep the rest of the pack out of this, we have to. Right now we are all thinking about worst-case-scenarios. Maybe they only want to question Stiles about his magic and make sure that he is one of the good guys?"

Derek furrowed his brows. "Maybe, but what do we do if they have other reasons to talk to Stiles? I don't like the idea of you going to SHIELD alone."

"My boss had kinda the same thought. So my training involved mostly ways to defend myself and to get the hell out, if things go south." And with that Stiles teleported to the front door.

"Whoa!" They stared at him open mouthed. Except Derek, but his eyebrows tried to disappear into his hairline at the moment.

"Tadaa! So, the disappearing act should be enough, if I have to get out. But what then?"

Falling back onto his chair Stiles looked around his friends.  
He din't want to hide for the rest of his life, even if he was able to. Not being able to take part in the life of his pack and his father was not an option.

"That's still worst-case-scenario, right?" Malia asked with a glum expression.

Derek sighed, "Yes, but even if we hope for a better outcome, Stiles' disappearence has to be planed. I dont't like it anymore than you do."

"Mr Bournes is already on it. He gave me a location to teleport to and would organize the rest. I think he has a few more safehouses like this one up his sleave."

Scott nodded approvingly, "That's good. So we don't need to worry about the get-away for now. What are you planning on doing, if they want you to work for them or something like that?"

Stiles shrugged one shoulder rather helplessly, "That's tricky. I don't plan to work for the government, but the invasion was horrible and I was able to help. I don't think I would say no, if they ask for help in the future and so many lifes are at risk."

"None of us would," Boyd added quietly.

"I might," Malia said serious, wich caused them all to snort or chuckle. Even Derek had to smile at his cousin's antics. Her social behaviour would always be lacking, but towards the pack she was loyal and committed. Other humans? Not so much.

"What does Lydia think? She's the genius of the pack," Stiles asked.

It was disconcerting to plan anything without her input. Over the years Stiles and Lydyia established the perfect routine to work out the problems of the pack. Be it a new supernatural creature in town or the voting-system for movie-night.

"Oh, I have a message from Lydia, Allison and Kira for you," and with that Malia leaned over the table, grabbed Stiles' face in both hands and kissed him directly on his lips.

Stiles stayed utterly still, too shocked by what was happening and with his eyes wide open. After Malia let go and dropped into her chair, Stiles was still gaping at her, missing Derek's murderous look completely.

"Aehm," Stiles cleared his throat, to get his voice back to normal, "what was that for?"

Malia looked totaly unperturbed. "That was the message."

Erica couldn't hold her laughter back, but Stiles thought, she might not have tried that hard. Even Scott seemed amused, the traitor.

Lydia was a scary person, very very scary. Nobody could make him so uncomfortable, without even being in the same room.

"Right. Okay,...thanks, I guess."

"No problem."

Awkward silence, but Isaac, the best puppy of them all, came to the rescue.

"She also said something similar about knowing, what SHIELD is up to and how far their reach into our world is. They might have resources that could be of use in a crisis."

"Seems like we have a plan," Stiles said.

"Yep!" Scott was giving him his everything-is-going-to-be-alright-grin. Maybe they were doomed after all.

They talked for a little while longer, all happy about being in Stiles' company again and vise verca. But Mr Bournes would come shortly to take Stiles back to the archives and the wolves had a long run ahead to make it back to their cars.

The moment the wolves stepped outside and Stiles stood in the doorway to see them out, engine noises brought them into fighting-stance.

A jet landed directly infront of the cabin and out came Captain America, Black Widow and Tony Stark.

"Oh, fuck!" Stiles had the urge to knock his head into the door repeatedly. So much for not bringing anyone into this mess.

At least nobody had shifted yet.

But Tony Starks' grin wasn't all that reasuring, "So, Mr. Stilinski. How 'bout them werewolves, huh?"

Doomed, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm set. Looks like Sterek to me ;)  
> Next chapter should be finished tomorrow, I hope!  
> Have a nice weekend everyone!


	7. High Noon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there!  
> I'm happy to say, that I had the time to write another chapter this weekend.  
> I recieved some questions about any pairings for Stiles and though I lean towards Derek, I can't say if there is going to be more than their awsome friendship/dynamic in the story. I have the tendency to change my mind while I'm writing, so no promises, sorry! :)  
> But I want to thank you guys again for reading the story, for kudos and for leaving comments.  
> You're the best!

It had been tensely quiet for the last two minutes in the middle of the woods.

The only thing missing to make this a perfect standoff, was music from Morricone.

And maybe tumbleweed.

Captain America took a step forward, wich caused the wolves to close their line in front of Stiles, and if he heard correctly, Malia and Liam were starting to growl.

They always were the first ones to show their true selfs, if they felt in danger.

Black Widow responded by slowly moving one hand to her holster to lay her fingers on the gun while Captain America took a step back and held his hands up in a placating gesture. Oh man, with this amount of tension, this could get out of control very fast.

So Stiles made his way forward until he was standing between Liam and Malia, trying to calm them down by putting his hands on their backs and looking straight at the three Avengers.

"So,...Hi there. I would like to say, it's nice to see you guys again and everything, but... See, you have a pretty threatening vibe going on there at the moment.  
Would you mind telling us what you want, so we can all go our seperate ways?"

Tony Stark had to snort at that, which earned him a quick glare from the Captain, who still held his hands up and finally started to speak.

"Mr Stilinski, my name is Captain Rogers, these are my colleagues Tony Stark and Agent Romanoff. We are here in the name of SHIELD, the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, to ask you about your involvement in the fight against the Chitauri. This is not meant as an attack against any of you."

"Riiight, that's why you're armed and chose to ambush us in the middle of nowhere? To ask me questions? Seems a bit much to me honestly," Stiles focused with magic on his surroundings for a second," and I really do not appreciate Hawkeye pointing his arrow at us, while hiding in a tree!" The last part might have been close to shouting and he cringed.

So much for staying calm. Stiles was already angry, though he could understand, why the Avengers were handling the situation with precaution. He had thrown the shield up in front of him and his pack the moment the jet landed. Arrows and bullets would not get through, as repeatedly tested by stupid codeless-hunters, but it didn't change the intent to shoot.

They were not the bad guys. They were not aiming any weapons at anyone.

He took a deep breath when Malia and Liam were touching him reasuringly on his wrists.

"Well, the kid's got a point, Capsicle," Tony smirked at Stiles," so excuse him and the wonder-twins for their lack of manners. Could we get back to the werewolf part? That's pretty new information for me and your running through the woods was impressive, but the satellite-image was too blurry for my taste. So, who's a big bad wolf?"

Derek growled and glared at Tony.

"Ah, there he is! Do you mind a demonstration, I'm still sceptical about the concept. Vocally I can totally see it though."

And Derek's growling got louder, while he crouched lower as if to attack by leaping at the man. Stark din't seem to have any self-preserving instincts and Stiles was actually not surprised.

"Derek!" Stiles hissed. This needed to stop, before it spiralled out of control. If one side started to attack, this would only end in a bloodbath. Great, a month ago he wanted to hug Tony Stark after fighting on his side. Now he wanted to punch him in the face repeatedly.

But Black Widow, who stayed still the whole time, seemingly assesing the situation, brought her gun out of the holster slowly, crouched down to put it on the ground to stand up with her hands held in front of her. And she was staring at Derek directly while doing so.

"Alpha Hale. I apologize for my team and for the way we contacted your pack. We mean you no harm and would like to request a meeting in a place and time of your chosing in the near future. We need to question Mr Stilinski because of his involvement and his powers. The rest of your pack is not on SHIELD's radar except for the knowledge of the excistence of the Hale-Pack in Beacon Hills and we have the authority to keep it that way. Do you acept these conditions?"

"Wait what?" That was Tony, sounding perplexed. Stiles would like to second that though.

Thankfully everyone was gaping at her, Avengers and werewolves alike and not only Stiles. Redheads, man. They were always a force to be reckoned with.

Derek had lost his attack-stance and was looking at the Black Widow searchingly.

Hawkeye finally made his way out of hiding and stepped next to his team-mates, also with his hands held up and his bow strapped on his back.

"I apologize, Alpha Hale."

Derek nodded at him, before looking at Stiles. That he lost sight of the Avengers knowingly and stood relaxed, lessened the tension in the whole pack.  
Stiles was flummoxed by Black Widows request and wording. She, and probably Hawkeye, must have had contact to werewolves before. He had attended a few negotiations and meetings with other packs in the past and he always found it weird and kinda fitting, that they all talked so formal and respectful with each other. At least until the official part was over.

But they did not adress Scott acordingly to his status as a True Alpha, meaning their information was not as thorough as he feared, after being outed as a pack instantly.

He held a wordless conversation with Derek or rather Derek's eyebrows translating into "Do you want me to accept?", shrugging of his own shoulder meaning "Sounds better than what nearly happened here," followed by one raised brow and a slightly grumpy-face "That still doesn't make it safe" and ending with Stiles sigh and nod "I know, but let's do it anyway. I'm not helpless and there's no way around it".

His following eye-contact with Scott held nearly the same conversation and after Scott's quick nod Derek turned back to the Avengers, stepping infront of his pack.

"I accept your apologies and the conditions you presented. We would like to contact you in two days time with the information for a meeting."

They needed to talk to the rest of the pack and his Dad first. They could feel the others curiosity and fear through the bond. The tension of this whole situation must have been felt by all of the remaining members.

Black Widow also stepped forward, "Thank you, Alpha Hale. Please contact us under my number on this card anytime, the line is secure" she handed him the small card and stepped back, "and we will leave you alone until then."

She turned her back on the pack and marched back to the hatch of the jet, grabbing Tony's bicep and her gun along the way. He whined about not being able to see anyone turn furry yet, but let himself be dragged. Hawkey and Captain America both let their gaze sweep over the group once more before Barton nodded to Derek and the Captain nodded to Stiles. A minute later the jet disappeared into the sky.

They made their way back into the cabin in silence and Stiles more or less collapsed into a chair.

"Well,...that was intense. I feel exhausted and there wasn't even an actual fight, thank God."

Derek shook his head slightly amused, "You might feel better, if you dropped the gigantic shield outside."

"Wha...oh. Yeah, that might work." Stiles rubbed his neck embarassed and let the shield dissolve.

" At least she was telling the truth. Her heartbeat was steady," Isaac said, sounding a bit hopeful, while looking to Derek. He and Malia were still the best at hearing the lies, being born were-creatures instead of bitten ones.

"Yes, she was. But these are professionals, that we're dealing with. I don't trust it completely."

Erica rolled her eyes,"You don't trust anyone outside the pack, Derek."

Her exasperated tone lifted the mood and they all felt like some weight was lifted of their shoulders. They still had to think about SHIELD, but there was a chance, that they had catched a small break for the next two days.

"Dude!," Scott looked a little excited, looking at Stiles, "If they know Derek is the alpha and we're the pack of Beacon Hills, you don't have to hide 'till the meeting!"

Stiles was not on the same train of thought at the moment, still wrapping his brain about last half hour of his life, "Yeah. That's great, I guess."  
But he must have missed something, because the excitement seemed to come from all of them at the moment.

"What? What did I miss?"

Derek sighed and rolled his eyes, "You can go home now, dumbass!"

And yes, Stiles' thoughts came to a screeching halt, finally catching on. The following fist-pump in the air and the holler of "YESSS!" had at least all of them laughing.

He could finally go home, yeah!

Mr Bournes chose the exact moment to appear out of thin air, and Stiles' surprised flailing made him lose his balance and fall to the floor. Derek huffed out a laugh at that, of course he did.

"Hey Boss!," Stiles waved awkwardly from his position on the floor and his best bro grabbed him thankfully, to help him back on his feet.

Mr Bournes looked amused, "I was able to witness your meeting with the Avengers. There seems to be a change in plans?"

He handed Stiles his bag with a big smile on his stupid relaxed face.

But Stiles was too happy to care at the moment.

"Yeah. 'You mind taking me to the cars? I want to catch a ride home instead of going back to New York."

"Well, I could defintely use a few days of peace and quiet myself, Mr Stilinski."

That had them all snickering and Stiles glaring at his boss.

"Yeah, yeah. Make fun of the fugitive. Whatever..."

"I think I have a better idea. Alpha Hale, you will find him back in Beacon Hills."

With that he grabbed Stiles arm and with the blink of an eye they were standing in his fathers living room.  
And his Dad was gaping at them, losing hold of his coffee-cup, which Stiles let float to the coffee-table, like the big show-off he was. Mr Bournes already popped out of existence again.

"Hey there, daddy-oh! I'm back!"

There was a lot of hugging and a couple of tears the next couple of minutes.

But they would never tell.

Stilinskis were bad-asses either way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yes, I had to google the meaning of SHIELD,...again. Who can remeber that?


	8. Twenty questions, anyone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry!  
> This chapter took forever and I didn't like some of the things I wrote, so I had to change a few things.  
> And then Ao3 developed an aversion for paragraphs...  
> On the bright side, the next chapter is almost ready and hopefully uploaded by tomorrow, yay!
> 
> Thank you for kudos and comments! You guys are the best!  
> Have a nice weekend, everyone!

A few hours later, Sheriff Stilinski's living-room was bursting at the methaphorical seams. Every pack-member had made it's way to the house. Even the ones who studied farther away, like Lydia and Danny, had managed to come home for the weekend and to welcome Stiles back from his fugitive-life in hiding.

Lydia had punched him into his shoulder first, which surprisingly hurt more than he thought it would, and then hugged the hell out of him. They had an incredible friendship. Truly.

Cora had ignored him and moved straight to the chair Isaac had claimed. She would always be the ice-queen.

Sweet, sweet Allison had smiled at him with her dimples and after hugging him cuffed the back of his head for always getting into trouble.

But Erica had pinched his butt while simultaneously putting him into a headlock.

Why was he being abused by his female friends? He was a powerful magic-using dude, damn it! They always made him feel sixteen again, but in the bad way.

Impressive amounts of fast-food and sodas later, Stiles had finally told his epic battle-story from the day of the invasion, to a responsive audience for a change (Mr Bournes showed no reaction to the story AT ALL, that weirdo). He was a _great_ story-teller, thank you very much.

Overdue fist-bumps and acknowledgement of the awesomness that is Stiles Stilinski, gave him the fuzzies.

After he had the chance to show his new skills to his dad and everyone that hadn't been at the cabin, his father groaned, then smirked at him.

"I am so very grateful, that your training started after you went to college. You would have given me a heart-attack otherwise with the teleportation-act, kiddo."

"Don't joke about freaking heart-attacks, Dad! But the rest would have made life so much easier...", Stiles sighed. The possibilities, they would have been endless! How many hours of detention with Mr Harris for being late he could have avoided. And the amount of injuries and bruises!

"You might have gotten fat. Without all the running for your life, I mean.", Malia stated.

"Ey, rude! I'm skinny and I will stay that way!"

Derek had mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like "You're lithe, not skinny", but he didn't get a chance to respond to the maybe-compliment in the chaos of a pack-night.

They spend most of the weekend together exchanging stories of the last month, enjoying each others company.There was some planing for SHIELD, but at this point, no one was too scared about the possible outcome. Not when they were all together.

For the meeting they decided on an area in the Preserve that had a big fire-pit they sometimes even used on full-moon-nights and that was rarely used by anyone else, so they wouldn't be seen and the Avengers could land their jet without alarming all of Beacon Hills to what was happening. There were some arguments about who would acompany Stiles. While he wanted them all to stay behind and safe, so their names would not end up on SHIELD's radar, most of them wanted to be there to support him. And to glare threatingly at the Avengers, possibly.

Scott and Derek both said, that everyone should decide for themselves but they would be there, no matter what. So on sunday afternoon the whole pack minus their younger members that were still minors, made their way into the preserve, ignoring Stile's pouting and Liam's near temper-tantrum.

He had argued, that the Avengers had already seen him at the cabin, but the Alphas didn't move from their decision.

The Avengers where already waiting, standing in a half circle and no weapons in sight or being pointed at the pack. The whole scene looked weirdly calm in comparison to their stand-off two days ago.

"That's one hell of a tight suit." Allison whispered to Lydia while both had their eyes on the star-spangled-man.

"Yeah, and there are some very nice arms attached to that archer," Lydia added.

And Stiles knew they weren't wrong, he had thought the same things when he first saw the Avengers. But did they have to say it out loud? Because he could bet that Cap's lips twitched for a second there. No need to stroke the egos of superheroes! And they should know better after knowing how people with enhanced senses are...

But after Melissa made a noise, that sounded appreciating and agreeing at the same time, Scott's hissed "Mom!" was too amusing for Stiles, to be mad at the girls.

Nothing made Scott as uncomfortable, than talking about his mother having a sex-life.

Captain America nodded to Derek and Stiles before adressing them, "Alpha Hale, Mr Stilinski. Thank you for meeting us."

"Call me Stiles, Mr Stilinski is the Sheriff right behind me," Stiles pointed a thumb over his shoulder at his Dad, while he could nearly 'feel' the eyeroll said man send him at the moment.

"Okay, ...Stiles. How do you want to do this? We need to ask you a few things and the rest of your group doesn't seem like they would want to leave you alone with us for the time this will take?"

There was some nodding along them and one or two crossed arms across chests that Stiles could catch out of the corner of his eye. A few years back he would have been anoyed because of these overprotective gestures. But they had learned the hard way, not to let one of them face possibly dangerous situations (and sometimes even the seemingly harmless ones) alone. Better save than sorry.

Derek was the one to answer this one. "These people are part of our pack. They all came, because they want to be here for one of their packmates. Stiles told us everything that happened in New York, so there is no need for you to question him alone on our side. And I'm afraid I cannot offer you anything different." At least he didn't sound threating, no need to kill the mood too soon.

Captain America had a contemplatative expression, but nodded after a moment.

After beeing weirdly silent for the whole time, Tony Stark couln't quiet keep his comments in, after they were seated around the pit and he'd plopped onto a log. "If you start singing and dancing around the fire, I'm out. Dancing with wolves? That' something you do often?", he grinned at them.

Erica grinned back with way too many teeth, "In fact we do it all the time. Naked, of course. You wanna join?"

And Tony was spluttering while staring at her. Stiles didn't want to know, what he was picturing right now, but Boyd was starting to glare at the man. And it wouldn't bode well for anyone, if Boyd'd lost his cool.

"Stark, please stop picturing Erica naked. Rest of you, please start with whatever questions you want."

Hawkeye smirked at Stiles, while the Black Widow, who was still standing with her arms crossed, remained expressionless.

But she looked at Derek, "Alpha Hale. Since you gave us no other choice than to accept the presence of your pack, would you mind giving us some introductions? I would like to know who I'm speaking to."

They talked about that beforehand too. And they all wanted to do this by name, damn them and their pack-loyalty.

"Yes, if you still stand by your word, that you only report the information from questioning Stiles and no personal information on the pack. Since you already knew about our existence, there is no harm in proving you right. But we live normal lives and would like to keep it that way. Being known to the government would make it difficult and we won't know the possible consequences. We don't want that kind of information in the wrong hands and we also have to protect our minors."

"Baby-wolves?" Stark asked grinning widely.

"I stand by my word. We will only give information on Stiles to our superiors. Any information about the pack, will only entail our estimate about the number of members, your Alpha-status and Stiles' part in your pack. We will have to report on your threat-level as with any other pack known to SHIELD. The information we already have was given willingly by Alpha Thalia Hale and has not been updated since Laura Hale's and Peter Hale's death."

At least they didn't have to cover that part, if SHIELD's questions were reaching that far back. Stiles always hated, when the death of Derek's and Cora's family members came up. It left the same painful feeling inside him as talkin about the death of his mother did, even though he never knew most of them.

But they had come to an agreement and it was time for show-and-tell.

So the introductions started one by one.

"Kira Yukimura. Kitsune."

"Malia Tate. Were-Coyote"

"Isaac Lahey. Were-Wolf."

"Erica Reyes. Were-Wolf ...and Stiles' Catwoman to his Batman." With that she threw Stiles a wink, that had him grinning. He really loved her ability to turn everything she said into something lewd. Even if he was too often the one on the recieving end.

"Vernon Boyd. Were-Wolf."

"Chris Argent. Hunter and human."

"Danny Mahealani. Human."

"Lydia Martin. Banshee."

"And genius!", the pack said in unison, which got them a little pleased smile from Lydia.

"Wait!", Tony interrupted, "Lydia Martin, as in MIT-student Lydia Martin? The one that's being whispered about to be nominated for a fields medal next year?!"

They ignored him to continue, but Lydia threw him a smirk and Tony gaped at her adoringly, ew!

"Allisson Argent. Hunter and human."

"Cora Hale. Were-Wolf." Cora looked, as if it would physically pain her not to add something rude. Stiles was more than a little bit surprised, that she wanted to show up to this meeting. Though they had all grown closer as a pack over the years, he hadn't grown close to her as friends. She always prefered the company of wolves.

"Noah Stilinski. Sheriff and human."

"Melissa McCall. Nurse and also human."

"Stiles Stilinski. Pack-emissary and human." That one brought Black Widow to raise one eyebrow, ha! Take that, expressionless robot!

"Derek Hale. Alpha and Were-Wolf."

"Scott McCall. Were-Wolf and second Alpha of the Hale-McCall-Pack of Beaon-Hills."

And that one brought questions being fired at them instantly.


	9. We're the good guys, damn it!

Alisson quited them down with a sharp whistle, that had all were-creatures and the Captain wincing in pain.

"Would you please introduce yourselves? We were forthcoming and are hoping for the same curtesy..", she said with her stern face. Stiles respected that face, because ignoring a pissed off Argent alway ended painful.

"Tony Stark, for those who don't know that already. Playboy, billionaire, genius, philanthropist and part-time hero aka IRON MAN." He grinned and mock bowed from his sitting position.

"Clint Barton aka Hawkeye. SHIELD-agent."

"Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow. SHIELD-agent."

"Steve Rogers aka Captain America. Also part of our team are Thor, prince of Asgard and Dr. Bruce Banner aka The Hulk."

That was kind of understandable to leave the green-rage-guy at home. Stiles wouldn't want to witness The Hulk meeting a werewolf either. And if Thor was there, the ladies might have swooned. Also NOT something Stiles wanted to see.

"Stiles", Natasha Romanoff began, "you said you're human. But you were fighting with some kind of energy that you were able to use as a weapon. How did you do that?"

"I'm human but I also have magic. The ability to perform magic is something, that every human has, but on very different levels. My 'power' was repressed since childhood due to the medication I took for my ADHD."

"How is it, that the building of your workplace stayed damage-free while being in the centre of the destruction?"

Lydia threw him the I-told-you-so-look. Damn that woman, she always had to be right.

"Magical shield." Stark snorted at his answer.

"Where were you when the fighting started?"

"Storage-room at work. I heard customers screaming."

Barton looked at him with doubt. " You actually work at the bookshop? Don't tell me it's a magic bookshop. I've been there, you know?"

Lydia looked unimpressed. Take that, nice-arms.

"I'm a student at NYU. I need to work like most people to earn money and the bookshop is not magical." Well the archives were, but they were not part of the shop. Not really a lie, and thankfully the wolves didn't so much as shift at the tick in his heartbeat. No, wait! There was no tick, another thing Mr Bournes trained him for. That he hadn't told the pack yet.

"What happened when you heard the screams?" He had the feeling that Romanoff was the only one holding on to some sort of professionality, while asking him stuff. Did she have humour at all? Stiles would like to poke, if she wasn't so scary.

 

"My colleagues and I brought everyone into the back, something smashed the windows, I put a shield around the building and came outside to help." At that Rogers looked at him approvingly.

"When and were did you learn to fight?"

Stiles rubbed his hand over his neck looking sheepishly, ducking his head slightly.

"Highschool." His one-worded answer earned him a raised eyebrow from Rogers and Barton, but Romanoff stayed expressionless. That was creepy and kinda made him want to poke at her again. Yeah. He must have some kind of death-wish.

"What does emissary mean?"

"Aehm...an emissary is kinda a magical guide, ...sort of? It's not easy to explain and it's also different for every pack, you know?" He shrugged half-heartedly.

"Than what does emissary mean in relation to your pack?"

He didn't know how to answer that. He was part of the pack long before he became their emissary. And he was honestly still in training anyway.

But Scott had an answer.

"Stiles helps the pack in every way he can, like all members are supposed to. It doesn't matter if the problem is magical or if he is just being a good friend. He will do whatever he can to keep us safe."

That answer was so Scott, that Stiles could not help himself an threw his arm over Scott's shoulder in a one armed hug.

"I love you too, Scottie!"

Which earned him the classic sunny smile and back-clap from his buddy. Yeah, they were bros, no questions asked. Even Derek looked at them with a fond expression. Well, it looked fond to Stiles anyway. Maybe exasperated to everyone else.

"You were directly and indirectly part of different police-invastigations over the years including murder, missing person-cases, kidnapping of a fellow student with a resulting restraining-order and many more."

They had made their homework and Stiles hadn't expected anything less.

"The restraining-order was rescinded by Jackson shortly after the kidnapping." Lydia said dismissively.

Stiles looked at the Black Widow with his most honest expression and bambi-eyes. His father would identify the look as false from miles away.

"That was a list of facts. But I didn't hear a question."

She looked unimpressed. Well, it was worth a try.

"Come on kid!" Stark rolled his eyes, " She wants to know if you're a crazy-person, causing mayhem and hurting or murdering people, while Daddy Sheriff covers your ass."

With that the almost cozy athmosphere vanished at once. Stiles pulse spiked, the pack tensed , which caused the Avengers minus Tony to loose their casual positions. This was like a lethal version of dominoes.

Stark looked around, brows raised high. "What? Nail on the head?"

Stiles had ducked his head, his hands gripping the log on his sides with a white-knuckeld grip. He couldn't lie about that, he didn't want to. There were still times he had to count his fingers, dreams about the horrible feeling when he twisted that sword inside his best friend's stomach. The look of people he hurt while being used as a meat-suit for the Nogitsune. Nightmares of being exactly the person Tony Stark had just described.

But just as his thoughts spiraled down the road of horror and guilt, he could feel his father stepping closer behind him, grabbing his shoulders tight. "Son."

His breathing slowed down and after a minute he was finally able to loose the death-grip on the log.

"Sorry..." He mumbled. Holding his head high, eyes fixed on the Avengers he tried to explain.

"I'm not crazy and I don't hurt or kill innocent people. My involvement in those cases had to do with supernatural causes that my father was not aware of at the time." He took a deep breath, steeling himself to continue.

"But a while back I-...I was posessed by a fox-spirit called Nogitsune. They feed on pain and chaos and are known as evil and cunning tricksters." Swallowing hard and fighting the need to curl in on himself he had to force himself to speak further.

"So yes, at first I thought I was going crazy. I started sleep-walking, checked myself into a mental health facility and then I was a prisoner inside my own body, while the Nogitsune took control to hurt and kill people, including my friends."

After moments of silence, Barton stepped forward, gaze fixed onto Stiles.

"How'd you get rid of it?" Hawkeyes look was incredibly intense.

"My friends were able to separate us and killed that son of a bitch."

"He gone for good?"

And while Stiles whispered "God, I hope so.", the pack answered with a chorus of a vehement "Yes!".

But Barton still looked at him intensly and Stiles thought he saw understanding in his eyes somehow. He gave the man a timid smile that Barton returned.

That guy was a government agent and Stiles would bet that he'd seen his fair share of horrors, even without the supernatural elements, he himself sometimes hated with a passion. Humans could be monsters as well.

Romanoff wasn't finished though. Her gaze was fixed on his father and remembering Stark's assumption, that his Dad was covering their tracks illegaly, made his stomach churn. Because he did, he really did, repeatedly when the supernatural was involved too deeply and the law _couldn't_ be the resolution to their problems. But what else were they supposed to do?

"Sheriff, how are you involved in all of this?" At least she sounded neutral and not like she was accusing him. His Dad sighed tiredly and Stiles just knew, that he wasn't going to play his involvement down.

"I learned about the supernatural in Beacon-Hills from my son long after Scott was bitten, because his english-teacher, who turned out to be a dark druid, was sacrificing people. Stiles didn't want to bring me into this, because he thought I needed to be protected. When he realized that they needed my help and the help of the law to stop Mrs Blake and to prevent more people from dying, he came clear. Since then we're working together with the main goal to keep the people of Beacon-Hills safe."

"So you are covering up every crime that can't be explained without sounding like a crazy person?" Stark asked with that damn smirk of his.

Stiles' panic had increased over the last two minutes. This wasn't supposed to be about his Dad and he didn't want him to loose his job because his reckless son had to play the hero in New York for the whole world to see! His magic was simmering underneath his skin, ready to protect what was his.

His Dad stood straight and answerd with "If there is no other way, yes."

Holding his breath he waited for the inevitably aftermath of his father's actions, curling his hands into fists at his sides.

Instead of angry outbursts Rogers adressed the Sheriff. "Thank you for answering honestly. We just want to understand how you are able to keep this under wraps. And we understand the difficulty of dealing with things, that can't be explained to the public. It is honorable that you are protecting the civilians, even if they don't know about the dangers you are all facing."

Stiles finally breathed out, choking a little and trying to calm down. He believed the Captain and his patriotic earnest-face, even if he hated him for putting his father in a situation like this. The Sheriff always had to fight with his self-doubt about doing the right thing. Once he even asked the pack, if he should still be Sheriff, when he lied constantly to the people that gave him their vote. But being called out as honorable by Captain freaking America was _definitly_ good for his Dad's conscience.

"How is it, that your pack has two alphas? As far as we know, that should not be possible. Alpha Hale has inherited his power from his family but Mr McCall does not come from a lineage of werewolves."

Ah, yeah. Not gonna touch that can of worms today. They didn't need to hear about the nightmare named Peter Hale. But he would really like to get his hands on the information they had about werewolf-families, if they knew that Scott couldn't have been a born wolf.

"Yeah, Derek inherited his Alpha-power. Scott got his the noble way by being a freakishly good person." Aw, sunny smile number two. He was on a role today as best-buddy!

"And yes, it's unusual to have two Alphas in the same territory. We're pretty awesome at making difficult stuff work though."

He grinned widely at his pack, still incredibly proud of what they've been through by working together. It wasn't easy and sometimes painful, but they made it work. No one could ever take that away from them.

"Alpha Hale, Alpha McCall, Stiles. Thank you for your cooperation."

"Wait, what?" Stiles looked dumbfounded at Romanoff.

"We don't have anymore questions."

"Huh, okay?! But, ... I mean, what happens now?"

The Black Widow opend her mouth to answer, but was interupted by Tony Stark.

"Now I want to see what all the hype is about! I was promised furry creatures that like to howl at the moon. So far I haven't seen the tiniest bit of fur. Don't be shy, I promise I won't touch! But please no leg-humping!" He hold his hands up, looking from one were to the other hopefully.

Rogers groaned. "Stark! This is like Banner all over again. Do you want to die a painfull death?"

But Tony just kept on smiling. He was such an ass, that Stiles had to hide his smirk. So he seemed to like the guy against his better judgement. He was a fan of the dog-jokes himself.

Erica stepped forward, looking at Derek for a second, who gave her a small nod. This was going to be fun.

She crouched down infront of Stark, laying her hands on his thighs and leaning close. Tony's smirk lost some of the playfullness and turned wary. And his gaze was fixed on her eyes, like he was really trying not to look at her (as always generous) amount of cleavage. Stiles knew how hard that was from his own painful experience and felt a little bad for the guy. At least she wasn't going to knock Tony out with parts of his own car, lucky bastard.

"You wanna see something furry, honey?" Erica purred. God, she was so amazingly scary sometimes.

Tony only nodded, starting to lean back from her.

Erica grinned, her eyes glowing golden. Her nails turned into claws, still lying on the denim on his thighs and then her face transformed into her beta-form.

Tony gulped and breathed out a small "Holy Shit!", staring wide eyed at the werewolf infront of him.

But Erica thankfully already stood up and moved back. The Avengers had stayed relatively calm and that was more than Stiles had hoped for.

The weres had moved next to each other standing side by side and all turned at the same time. Even Kira's fox-aura glowed around her frame. They looked amazing and very, very bad-ass like this.

He loved them all to pieces.


	10. SHIELD or not SHIELD?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! I will try my best to update weekly again!  
> And as always: Thank you for the kudos and comments! Without you guys, this wouldn't be fun! :)

Stiles directed his shit-eating-grin at Stark. "Furry enough for you?"

And Stark nodded, still staring wide eyed at them. "Yep. I'm good."

He wondered what would have happened, if Derek'd turned into his full wolf-shift. But they weren't gonna reveal every trick in their repertoire today, though he would really like to see Stark gaping again.  
His pack turned back to their human selfs and returned to their former positions and seats.

"Sooo, we're done here, right?" Stiles adressed the Black Widow again. His right knee was slightly bouncing. This seemed too easy to be true.

"Yes, we asked everything, SHIELD wanted to know."

Yeah, there is a missing "but" loud and clear. Come out, come out, whatever you are... And of course she didn't continue, even though his eyebrows were raised questioningly.

"But...?"

The Black Widow tipped her head in direction of Captain America, who smiled at him.

"SHIELD might only want to get a feeling for the situation first to estimate the threat-level, but as the Avengers we would like to discuss the possibility to ask for your help in the future."

Now it was Stiles' turn to stare wide eyed at the man. They had of course discussed the chance that something like this might happen. One of hundreds of scenarios they had prepared for thanks to Lydia over the weekend. And this was definitly one of many, that Stiles had labeled as "Not-going-to-happen-stop-the-crazy-talk" in his mind. But apperently crazy was the new normal. He should have known. Kinda lost on what to do now, he turned to Derek, his trusty Alpha.

Derek's scowl was too much for him to descipher at the moment, but at least the man had words. Stiles didn't. He had slightly hysteric thoughts, "Whait, what?" and "Fuck" were even on repeat, but nothing seemed to be the right phrase to utter infront of Steve Rogers without sounding like an asshole or incredible stupid.

"Explain."

Okay, Derek had one word. Still more then Stiles had.

"Well, Derek- can I call you Derek? Alpha seems kinky to me somehow, dunno." Stark grinned. Even Barton's elbow to his side didn't stop the man from his suicide-mission. Never poke the werewolf!

"You're personal wizard there was helpful and you don't know how much damage Stark-Tower could have avoided, if the talk about magical shields wasn't bullshit, I'm not really sold on that yet and mphuhhmm...."

Romanoff had stepped behind IRON MAN and clapped her hand over the mans mouth in a tight grip. Stark looked so incredolous for a moment, that Stiles had to laugh out loud.

And HOLY SHIT! Romanoff smiled at him, while still holding the man's mouth closed. Seeing Stark being handled like a toddler by the red-head made Stiles' day.

Captain America's lips were twitching at his team-mates missfortune, when he turned back to Stiles.

"What we mean and Tony isn't able to explain like a normal person, is that we saw how you fought in New York. How you helped people and us to fight back or simply get to safety. Everyday we are faced with new threats, that we are not always prepared to handle. Loki's magic brought war and death on earth and he played us from the beginning. Even though we stopped him, there is no guarantee that the next not-friendly magical-being might be stopped in a similar way.

You want to protect your family, friends and pack. We want to protect the planet. If us workind together in the future could prevent even the death of one human, I think it is worth a try. And if your help might even be the solution to defeating someone like Loki before civilians are harmed? That's a pretty good reason to work together in my opinion. What do you say?"

"You're right."

"Stiles!" Lydia hissed warningly.

He was not supposed to commit to anything without all the information how this cooperation would be working. And he wouldn't, he wasn't that stupid. But Captain America was still right. Saving someone, saving anyone who might be caught in the crossfire was worth his involvement in the fight. It was in fact the whole reason for his solo-mission in New York.

"It's okay, Lyds. I agree with what you said, Captain. And I am willing to help, if you need me to. But there are tons of things, that we need to discuss beforehand. I can't take the risk to be identified in order to protect my pack. And I have a life and goals that I don't want to give up. Most importantly, I don't want to give a government-agency a way to use me as they wish."

Stark was finally free of Romanoff's hand. "Way ahead of you, buddy. We're not SHIELD, there are a whole lot of trust issues and I don't appreciate their way of doing things on most days. You would be working for the Avengers and while we work together with SHIELD, we're not the same. okay?"

Stiles looked at Barton and Romanoff dubiosly. They were SHIELD-Agents, or not? Didn't they have to follow orders? The Black Widow answered his unspoken question.

"Yes, were seperate. SHIELD can still give Barton and I missions, but if the Avengers are involved, Rogers is our team leader. There are ways to make sure, that your involvement stays on your terms. To work with the Avengers, we need you to sign a consultant-contract with Stark-Industries. The CEO Pepper Potts has already worked out the details to ensure that SHIELD cannot interfere."

"Yeah, she's kinda an expert how to get me out of SHIELD's claws anytime. That contract will be airtight, don't worry. I've got one myself." Stark pointed out.

Lydia looked unimpressed. "We would need the contract to have it verified."

"Of course." Romanoff answered. "Should Stiles decide, that he wants to work with us, the contract will be send to you by Miss Potts shortly."  
Lydia nodded in acceptance.

Okay, two smart, attractive and possibly, no DEFINITELY dangerous red-heads were terrifying enough. To add Pepper Potts to this, ...whatever this is, was like presenting them the world (and possibly their collective manhood) on a silver platter. The woman was CEO and girlfriend of Stark. She must have nerves made of steel. Or was it ovaries? Stiles' hands became sweaty just by thinking of them ever meeting.  
Barton grinned at him, as if reading his thoughts.

"For the rest," Romanoff continued, " We don't want to interfere with your life. Only in case of an emergency you would have to be involved. And there are ways to hide your identity out in the field. We have the technologie to change your face or you could wear a mask."

At that most of the pack snorted and he just knew they were thinking of his Batman-costume from last Halloween. At least Erica understood his dedication to the man. His favorite childhood-hero was badass, ignorant idiots! That he looked rediculous with the fake-muscled breast-plate would never stop him from wearing it.

"Har,har. Laugh it off, guys."

Stiles was feeling the strain now. He was exhausted and so damn tired of everything. Tired of thinking and hiding. But this sounded still too easy. Was he really strong enough to handle the danger of world-threatening situations regulary? Beacon Hills was different, he knew the territory and their system as a pack worked in bad situtions like a well oiled machine. But the big bads, that wanted to attack the earth and not just a small town in California, could turn up anywhere and anytime. Maybe he wasn't the guy for them at all. Oh confidence, where did you go?

"Okay, that sounds great and everything. And I'm sure we can figure out the details. But I know my own boundaries. I know my strenghs and weaknesses and I am sure as hell not equiped to handle war-situations. I'm not a soldier or superhuman. In New York I got lucky that my magic was enough to fight these aliens, but there's no way of knowing, if it's gonna be enough in the next situation."

"You're right." Rogers nodded. "Often we don't have the time to asses the situations and enemies we have to face. But the risk to be overpowered, to not being able to fight someone off is the the same for all of us. Everyone has ther speciality and fighting as a team with many different abilities gives us the advantage to handle all kinds of threats. Most importantly, we _fight_ as a team and since you know how that works, you have to trust your teammates to have your back and to work together. We're not going to throw you to the wolves, ...ah sorry, no pun intended, but we want you as part of the team when things turn south and you might be the only thing between us and death."

Romanoff stepped closer to Stiles and crouched down infront of him. She wore the most open expression, Stiles had ever seen on her face.

"If you have doubts about your level of training for combat, we can fix that. I know you want SHIELD as far away as possible from you and your pack. But they also have the best training-program for their agents in the world. Barton and I could be training you officially, when you agree to a consultant-position for SHIELD. Every consultant is required to run through the program for field-agents. After that you're access-level will give you the possibility, to use the for your level cleared information and resources of the agency. You can work out the terms of your contract and I will personally give it to the director. Yes, there are trust issues inside SHIELD. But it's an organisation _made of spies_. They are not the bad guy and without them, the world would already be a darker place."

While Stark made a face like he tasted something nasty, he wasn't saying anything against it to Stiles' surprise. "Still not a fan, but... if you became part of SHIELD, even just as a consultant, big brother would stop nagging you. Might not be bad for the long haul."

And even Barton chimed in. "Yeah, kid. It's not all bad, ya know? Would definitely be easier to play nice. Nat and I wouldn't be here, if it wasn't for SHIELD."

Stiles rubbed his hands over his face. It made sense, yeah. And he might get the chance to look into some of the information, that SHIELD might have about the supernatural. Biggest selling point was the training though. He wanted to help, even if he was really, really nervous about it. This was the big league.

Jesus, he was too tired to think about it, but his brain couldn't stop running through the pros and cons.

"Pffff, okay...yeah. That's a possibility I haven't thought about and that I will have to think about a lot more, sorry."

Captain Rogers gave him a small smile. "No problem, Stiles. We understand, that you have to work through this on your own time. But thank your for listening to our offer. It would be great, to have you as an ally in the future."

And that was pretty much the end of their meeting. Stiles was deep in thought, but noticed Lydia and Natasha Romanoff exchanging contact-informations. Maybe not and they were already planning to take over the world, who knew? That might not be a bad idea, if they had to deal with any threat against the planet. Man, his brain was fried.

They said their goodbyes, watched the jet and with it the Avengers take off and began the track back to their cars. The whole walk was pretty silent and Stiles thought he wasn't the only one with an overused brain trying to figure out what to do.

But that also gave his mood a needed boost to the bright side. They would work through this together, he didn't need to make a decision on his own even if it was in the end his decision.  
His father passed him by on the way to his cruiser, patting him on the back. Scott hip-checked him and climbed onto his motorbike, a smiling Allison right behind him. The rest scattered on their respective ways and vehicles.

And Derek steered him wordlessly to the camero with a hand on the small of his back, which was weirdly comforting. Tonight he needed to consume his weight in greasy food, surounded by pack.

Tomorrow he would start to think about saving the world.


	11. The Mad Scientist And His Robots

"Owww, damnit!"

Stiles landed on his back on the training mats, rubbing a hand over his sternum.

Natascha had kicked him again and his body was already made of enough ugly bruises in different states of healing.

He had been in training at SHIELD for a few months now. Thanks to Pepper Potts and her army of lawers and to the whole Avengers-team backing him up, when it came to negotiations with Fury, he was now officially "Agent-in-training Stiles Stilinski". Boojah!

In reality, that only meant he was constantly in pain. Training was hard, scary and a whole lotta fun. Between studying, and working at the book-store, he was part of the training-program at SHIELD. Right now he had hand-to-hand training with Natascha and he was not allowed to use his spark for that.

Even though he was getting faster and stronger with ever day, he would never be able to win against someone like the Black Widow without his magic. Which he told her on a daily bases, trying to keep himself from whining, but mostly failing. But the stoic woman kept on beating him into shape.

He had slightly more fun on the shooting-range with Clint. Thanks to his Dad, he had been a good shot before, but _now_ he got to work with weapons that even most cops never got their hands on. Clint was a bad-ass archer and definitly one of the best. But he was also an incredible marksman, no matter which weapon he used. Stiles learned, that he had a hand for throwing things with impressive aim, aftter a few training-sessions. And Clint had creative ideas, how to simulate fighting-scenarios, that were crazy and fun.

But the best part of his training-days was sparring with Steve. He mostly never used any magic, while training at SHIELD. Surprisingly, Fury was the one to point out, that using his spark inside SHIELD might be a bad idea, even if they explained them as powers to agents with a lower security-clearence and left the magic-part out. Inhumans, as the powered people were being called, were spotted around the world almost monthly now.

Inside the training-building he had no way to conceal his identity and too many eyes observed the training area or used them at the same time. That was the first point Fury, the pack and the Avengers agreed on.

But since they needed to train him for using his spark in combat-situations, Stiles made his way to the Avengers-Tower after every session at SHIELD. And since Tony was a rich bastard, his driver and bodyguard Happy Hogan waited for him in front of the building almost everytime.

Only when Pepper needed to be driven somewhere, Stiles was left to get to the tower on his own. Today he was lucky and Happy stood outside leaning against the car, a smoothie for Stiles in one and his own coffee in the other hand. They got along fabulously after bonding over their shared appriciation of red-heads and agreement, that Tony Stark was secretly a good guy. But obnoxious.

"Stiles." Happy greeted him by handing him his cup of fruity goodness.

"Hey, Happy! Thanks!" Stiles took a big gulp, already hungry after the training with Natascha. He didn't get the chance to have lunch, after his morning-course and being unpunctual when meeting the red-head, ended more painful, then the normal training.

"That's a nice shiner you got there." Happy gestured to his face.

Stiles winced at the memory, when his face had met Natascha's knee a few days ago.

"Yeah, couldn't be helped. I don't think, I'm ever going to be fast enough for her, man."

Happy snorted, but tried to hide his grin behind his coffee, while opening the backseat-door for Stiles. He was weirdly strict about people in the passenger-seat.

 

He enjoyed the short rides with Happy, who always liked to gossip about everything, except Tony and Pepper. He was loyal and protective of them and Stiles respected that from the beginning. He was also glad, that Happy always drove him inside the underground-garage instead to the front entrance. The car-collection of Stark was crazy and so very beautiful. Stiles loved his Jeep, but the shining sports-cars left him in awe every time.

"Welcome, Agent Stilinski." JARVIS greeted him in front of the elavator, which left Stiles smiling. The AI was an extraordinary being and more than proof, that Tony was a god-damn genius.

"J-Man! How's it going today?" The doors opened for him, and Stiles stepped into the privat-elevator, waving at Happy while doing so. There weren't even buttons in this one, only JARVIS could allow access to the Avengers-floors, Tony's workshop and the lab of Bruce Banner. The elevator would probably turn into a death-trap, if someone tried to force access.

"Very well, thank you. Are you on your way to the gymn-floor, Agent Stilinski?"

"Yep! The Captain should be expecting me."

"I am sorry to inform you, but Captain Rogers has left the building ten minutes ago. He was called into SHIELD unexpected."

Stiles slumped against the wall. He really liked training with Steve, when he was finally able to use his Spark. And Steve had the _best_ training ideas beside Clint.

"Aww, no. That sucks. I'm guessing he's not coming back for a while?"

"I cannot give you information about the duration of Captain Rogers absence. But it is highly likely, that he will not return today."

"That's okay, J-Man. Thanks for the heads-up though. Should I head back down to the garage or exit through the main-entrance?"

"Mr Stark would like me to inform you, that he expects you in the workshop."

Stiles frowned. He had been there once, when he first came to the Tower and Stark had felt like he needed to show off and gave him a tour, until he was interupted by Pepper draggin him to a meeting. Which Stiles had been thankful for, because when they arrived at the workshop, Tony's eyes got a slightly manic gleam to them and Stiles realized, that he was completly alone with a mad genius on his playground.

But it seems, as if Tony was trying to make up for the lost chance on getting Stiles into his claws.

Sighing he dropped his head, rubbing his hands over the back of his head. Since Steve wasn't available, he actually had nothing else to do right now, and Stark defenitly knew that.

"Yeah. Okay, beam me up, JARVIS."

When the doors finally opened on the floor of doom, like some employees liked to call it, Stiles was prepared for an imidiate attack, but was instead assaulted by Led Zeppelin's 'Ramble On' with an impressive volume.

"Thanks J."

"Of course, Agent Stilinski."

And with that he made his way into the lion's den.

After looking catiously for Stark on his way to the middle of the room, he was met with a robot, holding a fire-extinguisher in some sort of claw. Happy had already told him about the Bots and he was able to identify this one as DUM-E. Since he wasn't able to talk to him, thanks to the music, he hold his right hand out for a hand-shake, which he recieved to his surprise. Smiling at DUM-E, while still holding his claw, the music suddenly cut out and Stark appeared out from under something, that looked vaguely like a turbine.

"Hey! What are you guys doing?"

Stiles rolled his eyes, but looked back at DUM-E, who was still shaking his hand and now he could hear chirping noises coming from the bot, that seemed excited.

"Hello DUM-E. My name is Stiles and it's nice to meet you." More excited noises and something that seemed like the robot-version of a happy-dance.

"Yeah, yeah, cut it out you two. Don't corrupt my Bot, Stilinski! DUM-E, get in position. We talked about this."

DUM-E let his hand go and made his way to the side of the room, still clutching the fire-extinguisher.

Stiles finally focused his attention on Stark, who had moved to one of his work-tables and seemed to be tinkering with what looked to be something like a potatoe-gun.

"Eh right, what was it you needed me for?"

Tony smirked slightly, still working on his project. "JARVIS told me, that Cap abandoned you today and since I'm such a good team-mate and your training _is_ important to all of us, I'm gonna do you a favour."

Now he had a very bad feeling about the whole thing. He watched Tony putting the gun on a nearby table (next to a bunch of things that Stiles _defenitly_ identified as weapons), that the man then rolled to the center of the room. "What kind of favor are we talking? Because if you want me to fight the suit, we should definitly change locations."

At that Tony actually snickered. "Nope, here's good. And we won't be needing the suit either. But you should take a few steps to the left, yes, there's perfect. Now..."

The bad feeling intensified to a small panic and Stiles heartbeat picked up. Would Tony really be crazy enough to fire weapons at him? "JARVIS? What's going on?"

But he didn't get a response, which wasn't any better for his nerves. "Tony?!"

Tony picked up the potatoe gun, which might be a flame-thrower, after Stiles got a good look at it, and stepped directly in front of him,  still keeping a good shooting-distance between them.

And then he had the _nerve_ to grin, while aiming directly at Stiles' head.

"So, now show me 'bout those magical-shield, yeah? DUM-E? Get ready."

Mad scientists are no joking matter.

But thanks for DUM-E at least.

Stiles took a deep breath, focused on his spark and exhaled. Better get it over with.

"Okay, Stark. Hit me with your best shot."

It really _was_ a flame-thrower, dear God!

 

 

 

 

 


	12. Redheads! Do not engage!

"HE DID WHAT?!"

Pepper winced at the volume of the screech coming through the speaker. She had the honor of informing Lydia Martin, as to why one Stiles Stilinski was currently guest of the hospital-floor, with a heavy concussion. Since the young man's body showed a massive amount of bruises prior to the accident, they were not able to say exactly, which other injuries he suffered, then the one to his head. If he was concious at least, they might have a better idea.

And of course she had to thank Tony for her current situation too. Remembering that this was a Skype-call, she refrained from pinching the bridge of her nose, but it was a close call. But a small sigh escaped her anyway.

"Apparently they were perfoming some kind of weapons-test in Mr Starks workshop. Mr Stilinski was supposed to shield himself from different projectiles. But at one point Mr Stark's helper-bot DUM-E, who was positioned as a safety-precaution, used a fire-extinguisher on Mr Stilinski without cause, and Mr Stark fired the repulsor of his suit at the same time. Mr Stilinski seems to have been distracted by DUM-E and wasn't able to react in time. He was thrown into a wall, and he sustained a headwound, a concussion and several bruises."

While Miss Martin seemed to work through the information with a clenched jaw, her gaze turned murderous. "Miss Potts. I understand, that you're not only the CEO of Stark Industries, but also in a romantic relationship with Tony Stark. But the next time I see him, I WILL punch him."

"I understand."

Lydia nodded once. "How is Stiles holding up?"

"He is still unconcious, but Doctor Banner expects him to wake up any moment now."

"Okay, that's good." Lydia's shoulders dropped, relieved that Stiles wasn't seriously injured, even if he got knocked out. But she was still furious about the whole situation. How could Stiles be stupid enough to agree to Tony's idea? Maybe she would have to punch him too, after he was released from the hospitel-floor, of course.

"As his medical proxy, you will be informed of any change in his condition immediately."

"Thank you, but I'm going to book the next flight to New York. I'll be there, as soon as I can. I would appreciate, if you could inform security. I don't want to loose time, by them having to verify my clearence to visit my friend."

Pepper perked up, finally having something to offer,  other than platitudes. "The Stark-Jet will pick you up at the airport in an hour, Miss Martin. We are happy to help in anyway we can, and transportation will be no problem. You will be picked up at the airport in NY by Happy Hogan and personally escorted to Mr Stilinski without security-checks."

"That sounds perfect, thank you, Miss Potts."

"It's the least we can do. I regret, making your acquaintance under these circumstances. Stiles speaks very highly of you."

They ended the call and Pepper leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes. She had forced Tony to show her and Bruce the security-tapes, to assess the injury and frankly the possibility of a lawsuit. She didn't expect Stiles to sue them, but she had to be prepared for every possible outcome. And the tapes made clear, that Tony hadn't given Stiles a real chance to decline his involvement. That he had disabled JARVIS' access to the workshop for the time of the experiment, made clear, that he was aware of the stupidity of his plans. But he decided to do it anyway. Lydia had every right to punch him, and JARVIS would destroy any record of it happening.

She barely refrained from punching him herself an hour ago.

 

Stiles woke up to a world of pain. His head was throbbing, his eyes hurt as if someone stuck needles through them, to poke at his brain. And his body didn't feel any better. He groaned, already regretting making any sound at all, when the headache intensified.

But he noticed someone squeezing his hand and holding on. "Stiles?" He was so very thankful, that Lydia whispered his name.

"Hurts..." He croaked.

"Stiles?" That sounded like Bruce Banner. "I will give you something for the pain in a moment, but I need to check your eyes and your headwound, okay?"

After he went through the painful checks and Bruce wrote something on is hospital-chart, he finally got the good drugs and the pain became dull.

Bruce informed him of his condition. "You have a wound on the back of your head from the impact with the wall in Tony's workshop. You needed stitches, so we had to shave some of your hair. You have a heavy concussion, but no swelling of the brain. So you should be fine in a couple of days. The bruises on your upper back, elbows and your hip are also from the impact, though some of them might be the result of your training. You will need to stay here for observation and the nurse will wake you every hour because of the concussion. I will check up on you later again. Okay?"

Stiles made an affirmative noise, already lying back, with his eyes closed. The drugs made him sleepy, and that sounded like a perfect way, to get away from the pain. Lydia was still holding his hand, and even though he might have understood only half of what Bruce said, having her here, made him feel safe.

"Stay?" He whispered. He tugged at her hand, to get her to come closer.

"Of course."

And the last thing he felt, was Lydia laying down next to him and curling carefully into his side. After that he was out cold.

 

After an exhausting night of pain, hourly wake-up-calls and one more check-up with Doctor Banner, Lydia and Stiles were woken up softly by Bruce. Stiles' head felt much better, even if the headache was still there, but the pain-level was much mor bareable. Bruce checked his head and eyes again.

"The Mydriasis in your left eye has gone back, that's very good. Blown pupils are common with a head-injury like yours, but they can also be a sign for too much pressure on your brain. Your head-scan already ruled that out yesterday. Your head-wound is healing nicely, too." He noted the results on the chart and then gave Stiles a thoughtful look.

Lydia, having seated herself into the chair next to the bed before the examination, frowned at Bruce's expression.

"What is it? You said, everything is healing fine, but your looking like there's something else."

"Is there a chance, that your magic is speeding up the healing process?"

Now it was Stiles's turn to frown. "Not that I'm aware of. I haven't learned any healing magic yet, because it takes a lot of my energy and my Yoda says, I'm not ready."

Bruce nodded slightly. "Your recovery is faster then normal, but also not as fast as Steve's. You should talk to your teacher about this. If you have the ability to accelerate your healing-process, it could be useful to you in the future."

"Thanks Doc, I will. But even though I'm not sure about the magic healing, I _do_ know that Lydia is speeding up the recovery." Stiles squeezed her hand, giving her a small but thankfull smile, which she returned.

Bruce nodded, already concentrating on the lab-results in his hands. "It is proven, that human contact can act as a pain-reliever and is important for recovery."

At that, Lydia's smile vanished and she looked up at the Doctor. "That's not what he means, Dr. Banner."

Bruce finally gave his full attention back to the pair, looking at them questioningly. "Has this anything to do with you being a banshee, Miss Martin?"

Lydia made her way back to Stiles' side on the bed, still holding his hand and running the other through his hair, while he leaned into her side, wrapping his arm around her waist.

"There are perks to being part of a werewolf-pack, even for the human members. The wolves have incredible fast healing, but there are injuries, like the ones inflicted by an Alpha, that take longer to heal. When you're part of a pack, you are connected to every single member. We call them pack-bonds. When one of us is injured, the closeness of another member or even better, the whole pack, will help with the healing-process."

"That's _incredible_..." Bruce breathed out. The possibility of healing without medication left him stunned and his thoughts racing.

"Yay!" Stiles mumbled, his head making it's way into Lydia's lap. Her massaging hand on his skalp made him sleepy. He could still hear them talking, but wasn't able to follow them anymore.

Lydia smiled softly down at Stiles. His breathing had evened out and he was fast asleep.

But as she noticed Bruce hovering nearby, she looked at the Doctor questioningly. "Dr. Banner?"

"Sorry," Bruce awkwardly took off his glasses to clean them with his shirt, " I was wondering if you would allow me to ask some questions? I mean, you don't have to answer, of course..."

Lydia smiled at the nervous looking man to hopefully ease his nerves. " You can ask me anything you want, Dr. Banner. And I will answer every question, if I can and want to, okay?"

Bruce's shoulders dropped slightly and he smiled softly back. "Yeah, that sounds fair. And you can call me Bruce, if you want."

Her smile grew bigger, still stroking Stiles' hair softly. Bruce Banner was a genius in his field, someone she admired for his intelligence and his work. And even though he might sometimes turn into a green giant, the man himself seemed so painfully shy. All the while, she had to contain herself from bombarding him with questions and feeling giddy at the prospect of a conversation with one of her idols in the field of bio-chemistry.

"Of course, Bruce. Call me Lydia, please."

 

When Stiles woke up next, he felt so much better, definitly more human than the last two times. His head wasn't pounding and he could only feel the actual wound and the stitches. Okay, one or two bruises had him still wincing, when he moved his limbs, but that's nothing new, right?

He turned around to the chair beside his bed, expecting Lydia to be there, but found it empty. The low voices he could hear made him push his torso up on his elbows and able to look out of the big window facing the hallway.

What he saw made him freeze with a horrified expression on his face, until he squeezed his eyes shut and put the blanket over his head.

Infront of the window stood his best-female-friend Lydia Martin. And she was talking to Pepper Potts and Natasha Romanov. And they were all _smiling_ at each other.

Now it was only a matter of time, until the redheads ruled the damn world.

Crap.

 

 

 

 

 


	13. Baby-Agent, meet Ms Lewis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried, but I can't really follow the Marvel-Timeline without being grumpy about it. So I'm ignoring it mostly while maybe following it by accident...

 

Stiles wasn't sure, how he liked this job.

He was a Spark, Emissary and part-time Avenger. And even though he had weeks until his next semester started, he was also a college-student and employee of Bourne's and Sons.

So how _the fuck_ did he end up as a personal messenger?

Oh, yeah. He was also an Agent of a stupid organization, that seemed to think his first real fucking solo-mission had to take place in the middle of fucking nowhere, surounded by miles of the New Mexican desert in his fucking _free time_!

Okay, yeah. He hated this job. Big time!

He'd just made it home two days ago, when Fury himself made the call, that they needed him to drive to Puente Antiguo to meet with an asset. SHIELD had send him a file he was supposed to bring on his SHIELD-tablet, but only the asset could open the encrypted data. Because _of course_ his clearence-level wasn't high enough to know, what kind of information he was delivering and to whom. And no, the file couldn't be send there digitally either.

It sounded more like a drug-deal, than being in the field as an agent.

Since he had to open his damn mouth, when Fury asked about his possibilities for transportation, his beloved Jeep now needed to cool down at the side of the road. Because the desert sucks! And maybe he had been already frustrated to begin with.

The Avengers had scattered one by one. After the incident in Tony's lab, things cooled down a lot. Tony had to go to Malibu, Steve and Natasha were away in Washington for the time being, Clint left on some mission,Thor never showed up again, after he brought his brother and the blue cube of doom back to wherever. And the good Doc went back to some country on his selfless version of doctors without borders. Okay, that was a pretty good reason for staying away.

But really, they all up and left New York. And Stiles was kinda pissed about that, even if he knew all their reasons for being away. But his training stopped, his contact to SHIELD was down to a minimum since they didn't need him consulting without the Avengers, and his boredom-level was incredible high. After finishing his semester, finals were luckily no problem at all, thanks to all that freetime and Mr Bournes' training took place on his two work-afternoons in the shop.

The silver lining was in sight and he had finally made his way home, happy about the chance to spend time with the pack and his Dad and now he was stuck here. In the desert. Fucking fantastic.

Hours later he finally made it to his destination, which turned out to be an old repair-shop in Puente Antiguo. And his jeep was starting to sound like a dying transformer. Hopefully the repair-shop could lend him the tools, to fix it up for his way home.

Okay, he wasn't stupid. A while back, there had been a story in one of the forums of the online-community for the paranoid about a gas-leak in this town. A few days earlier there was chatter about a mysterious hammer, that no one was able to lift. And very shortly after said gas-leak, the footage of people trying to lift the hammer in some pretty stupid or funny ways on youtube, vanished. But the footage of the invasion showed Thor with this very impessive hammer, covered in runes. Stiles knew his mythologies-stuff, allright? You don't live with werewolves without doing your homework on _everything_. He liked to have information at hand in life-threatening situation, if possible. Higher chance to keep all his limbs.

So the conclusion of first contact with thunderpants and his trusty Mjoelnir in New Mexico, followed by some kind of trouble involving fire and apperently a thorough cover-up by SHIELD, didn't need that much of brain-power.

And Clint might have told him a bit about the mission, when they'd tested a flame-thrower with appropiate security-meassures and without Tony. The fire-breathing robot from space sounded cool, except for the distruction of a small town and everyone in it part, of course.

So Stiles was 90 percent sure, he was about to meet Thor's lady-love.

He wasn't prepared for meeting the intern though.

He'd just climbed out of the car, when two heads popped up over the railing of the roof. Since it was already pretty dark, Stiles wasn't able to get a good look and seconds later he was blinded by a pretty bright flashlight.

"Stop right there, dude! Hands where I can see 'em!" a female voice shouted from above.

Stiles threw his hands up ( and his shield, duh) and squinted into the light. "Whoa! Eh, I come in peace?!"

"Yeah, yeah. That's what the bad guy would say! Who the hell are you and what do you want?" Another person could be heard giggling on the roof. Stiles felt punked.

"I'm Agent Stilinski and SHIELD send me. Who are you?"

The female voice groaned and then sighed exasperated. "Perfect, as if we're in need of more jack-booted-thugs, trying to steal our stuff. I mean, really, once was enough and Agent i-Pod-thief still has my i-Pod. Why the hell should we let you in, hm? You want my taser too?"

"Fury send me to this location. This is actually a planned visit that was, to my knowledge, announced to the person, I am supposed to be meeting here." He held up his badge.

More chuckling and some very unlady-like snorts.

"Boss-lady? You know anything about that?" And now the second woman was full out laughing.

Thankfully the flashlight was lowered and Stiles finally had the chance to look at the women on the roof after blinking away the brightness, but he couldn't make out more than two shapes in the dark.

"Jane! What did I tell you about answering your phone in the middle of Science! when I'm not there?"

"Not to answer it?"

"Damn right. Don't answer your phone, if you're not going to listen. So we can avoid awkward situations like this, when I'm scaring poor baby-agents in the middle of the night!"

"Hey!"

"I'm sorry, Darcy. Don't be mad!" Jane hugged Darcy around her waist and buried her face into Darcy's stomach. Darcy rubbed her back soothingly and turned back to Stiles.

"Right. Glad we could clear that up. I'm gonna let you in in a moment, but I'm still armed, so no funny business, we clear?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

He lowerd his hands and made the few steps to the front door, slighty amused by the whole situation. He was pretty sure both women were actually quite drunk, Dr. Foster more so than the other one. This was turning out to be more interesting, than he'd thought.

When the door finally opened, Stiles got his first good look on the second woman. She was wearing an oversized flannel, leggins and galaxy chucks. And her hair seemed to be held up by pencils. When he finally looked into her eyes through her nerd-glasses, after admiring the bloody red lips, he noticed, that he was getting the same treatment.

"Well, well, well. Aren't you a cute baby-agent?" She had a mischevious glint in her eyes and he was sure she was trying to make him feel uncomfortable. She must really not like SHIELD-agents.

"Thanks. You look like every nerds wet dream. And I mean that in the most respectful way possible."

His answer had Doctor Foster back in stitches on the roof and the woman infront of him narrowed her eyes at him and crossed her arms. Stiles was proud of his ability to keep eye-contact. Erica had trained him well.

He took a step forward and held his right hand out, "Hi, I'm Stiles Stilinski and it's nice to meet you."

"Darcy Lewis. Intern to the great Jane Foster. And let's see, how nice meeting you turns out in the end." She shook his hand once and used her grip to pull him inside. After locking the door she pulled him towards the stairs and up on the roof.

"Boss-Lady, meet the baby-Agent, baby-Agent, meet Dr. Jane Foster. Your requested audience has been granted."

 Stiles got a good look at Dr. Foster, who was clutching a bottle of Tequila in both hands. She was smiling at him from her position on the deck-chair.

"Don't be scared, baby-agent. Darcy won't hurt you unless you try to steal from us.", she slurred.

Darcy, who had been looking through a cooler, looked at Stiles over her shoulder, grinning. " I promise no such thing!" and turned back to her task. These women scared Stiles more, then he would ever care to admit. There were incredible attractive, intelligent and drunk. If there wasn't a mission he needed to finish, he would already been running for cover.

Dr. Foster waved her arm in direction to another chair and told him to take a seat. "But Daaarcy! He's a cute one, look at those eyes and all that flannel. He fits right in! Don't scare him away."

Darcy plopped down next to Dr. Foster with three shot-glasses in her hand and a dirty grin.

"So, Agent Stilinski. You came at a bad time to discuss official SHIELD-business or whatever. But tomorrow morning Dr. Foster will be all ears and you can get going after your meeting. Until then we should get to know each other, don't you think?"

He eyed the shot-glasses suspicously. "Yeah, sure. You seem to think that getting to know each other requires drinking alcohol, right?"

Jane giggled and Darcy's grin got even wider and she waggled her eyebrows.

"Oh, honey. You're a quick one, aren't you? These three shots are for you buddy, because Janey and I have been doing this for a while already and to bring you up to our level of fun, you need to hurry up a little. For now we're just three people, Jane, Darcy and what was it?"

"Stiles."

"Right. Jane, Darcy and Stiles. And were getting to know each other while enjoying a night under the stars with a few drinks. You got a problem with my plan?"

"No, but I might worry about getting down those stairs while beeing drunk and having to sleep in my car when it's fucking cold here at night."

"Okay, but we have a lot of experience with those stairs and I promise you, that we will get you down without a serious injury. And you don't have to sleep in your car. I'm not heartless, there's a perfectly good couch downstairs with you name on it. I'm even willing to throw in a blanket."

Darcy and Stiles were staring into each others eyes and Jane was looking between the two of them.

After a minute of silence Stiles smiled at Dary and held his hand out for the first shot. "Right, I accept your terms. Let's get this started." Jane whooped, Darcy smiled more earnestly and handed him his first shot.

"Okay Bambi, bottoms up."

And Stiles threw his head back and downed the first shot of many.

 

If he had known, that the night would result in him waking up with a mouthful of brown hair and his arms full of two beautiful women, he wouldn't have changed a thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have the damn "sorry, I was stuck in the hospital"-apology for the very long wait.  
> Sorry, but I'm fine now and ready to get this story going again!


	14. Coffee please and thank you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone!

A magical hangover sucked, but the standard alcohol-induced hangover was pretty easy to get rid off. For someone like Stiles, at least.

Concentrate on your core and let the magical energy do the rest. Take a deep breath and start the new day without the pounding in your head. Easy peasy, right?

It just sucks, that you can't get rid of the bad tasting alien in your mouth, without using a toothbrush and minty toothpaste. Or the smell of tequila, that your own body will emit for the rest of the day. But a shower might be of help.

When it seemed safe to open his eyes to the mornig sun, Stiles found himself in the middle of a puppy-pile. Nothing unusual about that, except for the two ladies, that were using parts of his upper-body as a pillow. Ladies, who were total strangers until yesterday evening and now incredible close. Wasn't life beautiful? Stiles was also very thankful for his lack of morning wood.

The night before felt a bit like a dream, foggy in places and crystal-clear in others. A fairy-tail with sparkling lights, happy laughter and warm teddy-bear-hugs.

Okay, time to remember the details, before someone starts singing and he feels the need for a drug-test.

If something like platonic soulmates exists, these two ladies would be his (not that he would ever say this out loud in front of his pack). After he'd downed the first few shots, to catch up, and Darcy started to play rules-free twenty questions (also called interrogation by others), Jane declared them twins, that must have been seperated at birth.

 

_"Oh God! There's two of you!" They were still sitting on the roof, bundled up in blankets and sweaters. Even Stiles was wearing one of Darcy's knitted creations in purple with a unicorn on the front. He might have laughed at first sight, but since he gasped something along the lines of "sooo cool" through his laughter and snatched it out of Darcy's hands to put the sweater on, he was safe from her wrath.  
_

_But after Jane had listened to their conversation for the quarter of an hour, she came to the realisation, that he was her and she was him. And her drink was empty, again, damnit.  
_

_With a full glass she starts to eplain her realization with them, two identical expressions of confusion turned her way and Jane almost choked on her last sip. She fumbled for her phone, took a pic while simultaniously blinding Stiles and Darcy with the flash of her phone  and thrust her phone into two blinking faces._

_"Look! There is two of you!" The following facial expressions with raised eyebrows and open mouths had Jane laughing, thanks to them looking exactly the same. Again._

_Darcy tuned back to Stiles, scowling a little and starting to arrange his face with her hands._

_"Hm. She might be onto something. You look a bit like a Lewis there."_

_Stiles put his own hand to Darcy's face, looking over her features with narrowed eyes._

_"You look a bit like my mom there." His eyes were wide and bright.  
_

_"I always wanted a brother."_

_"Siblings are awsome." Stiles nodded along.  
_

_"You want?" Darcy was brimming with excitement in her seat, looking at Stiles with a giddy expression.  
_

_"You would make the most terrifying, badass and insanely beautiful sister in the whole universe. I would be honored." Stiles nodded along his words.  
_

_Darcy threw her arms around Stiles and hugged the living daylights out of him. His hold was equally tight._

_"I love you, little bro."_

_"I love you too, sis."_

_And they were still hugging, while Jane watched with glassy eyes the beautiful reunion of the siblings, while sniffing quitly (the loud way of the drunk and drugged).  
_

_Darcy's and Stiles's faces snapped to Jane (now creepily in tandem) and pulled her into their middle._

_Stiles stroked her back. "We love you too, Jane!"_

_Darcy kissed her cheeck. "Yep, your the big sister, annoyed with our antics and smitten with our awesomeness!"_

_Jane was laughing and crying happy tears. "I am. And I'm gonna be awesome at sisterhood!"_

_Their group-hug was suddenly encompassed by a glittering light. A silver strand seemed to come from Stiles' chest and made its way to Darcy's heart and then to Jane's and finally back to Stiles.  
_

_"Oh, pretty!" Jane clapped happily, while Darcy and Stiles looked at the light in wonder, without letting go of each other._

_After the light slowly disappeared, Darcy looked questioningly at her new brother from another mother. "Something you wanna tell me, bro? I might be drunk. but I'm not the one doing the light-show here."_

_"Ooops."_

  _Only seconds later Derek had called, because the pack-bond felt somehow weird. Derek could only describe, that Stiles felt like something more to him, in a physical sense. So Stiles had promised, to call his Master for information, just to learn, that they had indeed practised a bonding ritual, without meaning to. A combination of the planets, location, intend and declaration, some herbs and voila : new siblings aquired!_

_In reality, the bonding-ritual had not been succesfully done, since the seventies, but Stiles hold that detail back for the next day. Mr. Bournes seemed rather amused by Stiles luck with an accidental ritual far above his abilities. But, what else is new?_

_Jane and Darcy both felt the new connection between all of them and freaked out, but mostly in a positive way. They giggled happily about another proof, that magic was real and Jane swore she would get more information out of her new baby-brother, when they were not drunk off their asses._

_"When Jane's awseome boyfriend comes back on this planet, whe should totally introduce you two. He's got a magic hammer." Dary giggled again._

_Stiles was so used to feeling connected to the people in his pack, that adding two more didn't faze him at all. The more, the merrier. He had more than enough space in his heart for all of them._

 

The rest was really blurred. There was definitly more alcohol involved, also heartfelt promises for their future life as a family, more hugging and consoling Jane, because her stupid maybe-boyfriend from another world wasn't back yet.

How they'd made their way down from the rooftop without breaking their limbs was a mystery to Stiles.

"Urgh, Coffee!" Darcy mumbled into his chest.

"Hmm, me too." Jane mumbled back.

The girls groaned while burying their faces into the unicorn-pullover Stiles was still wearing.

He huffed a laugh and began to card his fingers through two different manes, which earned him some purring and some apreciative moans.

"Then maybe one of you lovely ladies needs to get up and make some? You do have a coffee-maker, right?"

"Uhu. But thats so far awayyy." Darcy whined.

"Shhhhh, you're too laud". Jane grumbled.

Stiles began to help with their pain. It didn't work like the way the wolves did it. When they absorbed the pain through their touch, they always felt part of the pain themselves. Stiles could push his magic into people and heal the source of pain, but he was draining his core and had to be careful with it.

"Better?", he asked after a few moments.

Two happy moans and nods later, the ladies made no move to get up.

Darcy began poking Stiles into his belly. "Coffee is next to the coffeemaker in the kitchen."

"Filters are in the cupboard above.", Jane mumbled.

"Hey, why do I have to make the coffee, you're the hosts!"

"You're the little brother, Stiles. Bottom of the food-chain." The poking continued.

"What she said."

Stiles huffed. "Alright, sleeping beauties, I see how it is. I'll make the coffee. But you gotta let me up first."

"Nooo, you're so comfy and warm and..."

"But Jane! Coffee!" Darcy exclaimed.

"Urgh, life is so damn hard."

Stiles laughed all the way to the kitchen.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, that one was long overdue.
> 
> I'm sorry, folks!


	15. Pop-Tarts, Food of the Gods

"Pop-Tarts?"

"Yep."

"No, seriously Darcy! I mean, look at this... how many are there?"

"All of them."

"All of them?"

"All. Of. Them."

"Huh."

Jane shuffeld into the room, seeing Stiles and Darcy starring at the open closet, but then made a beeline for the coffeemaker.

"Please tell me, that you eat real food on occasion, too?! Something with natural colours and flavours?" Stiles looked with raised eyebrows between Darcy and Jane. The latter was ignoring them, in favour of ruling over the only source of caffeine, before her siblings would start to request their equal share of the goods.

"Last time Prince McDreamy was around," Darcy explained, " and we introduced him to the wonder that are Pop-Tarts, he was _amazed_. So we have them all here for his inevitable return!"

Stiles smirked, but then noticed Janes desolate look at the mention of Thor's absence. "Hey, Janey. You okay?"

Jane tried to smile, but it came out a bit wobbly. "He said, he would come back. And he did, didn't he? Just not to me, so I think we should stop expecting him to need anything from us. I'm sure that his new buddy Stark can get him all of the Pop-Tarts, too."

Darcy winced. "Jane..."

But Jane interupted her, shaking her head. "Darcy, it's time. We're leaving for London tonight. And no one knows, if he's coming back anytime soon. The SHIELD-report said, that their part of the Einstein-Rosen-bridge was destroyed and Thor was only able to travel back to earth to fight the Chitauri, with the help of his father and the tesseract. He's a prince, Darcy. I'm pretty sure, Odin won't send him back just to meet up with us and to eat instant-food."

Both Darcy and Stiles shrugged and went to hug Jane, wich earned them a teary laugh and a one armed bear-hug each.

"You guys are perfect for each other, Jane. And I don't think, that we should give up on Thor returning to us at some point in the future." Darcy mumbled into her shoulder. "But I know, that this is hard and if you want, I can stop talking about it? I mean, I love Thor, but I love you more, Janey Jane. You know that, right?"

Jane sniffled, while Darcy stroked her hair. " I know, I know, don't worry. The move makes me cranky and nervous. I'll try the whole positive-attitude-thing, after we arrive in London, I promise."

They relaxed back into their group-hug for another moment, until Stiles let go off them.

"So your're leaving for London tonight?" Stiles asked a moment later.

Darcy nodded. "Yep, that's where Science! is happening next. And we need to visit our friend Eric. He had a hard time after Loki-the-asshat-Odinson messed with his head."

Since Stiles didn't want to eat Pop-Tarts for breakfast, they went to the diner in town for pancakes and waffles. They used the time to figure out, how to stay in contact in the future. Stiles would have to research their bond and everything they might be able to feel because of it and they agreed to have some form of communication at least once a week. After breakfast and packing the rest of their stuff, Darcy gave the Jeep a quick check-up. The goodbye was messy with feelings all over the place. But mostly they were all happy to have found each other.

"When you come back, I want you to meet some people from home.", Stiles told them, already standing next to his open jeep-door. "Can't tell my Dad, I finally got some sisters and then not bring them home, can I?"

 

When Stiles was back on the road for a few miles, Derek called.

"Hey Derek!" Stiles picked up cheerfully.

"Stiles. Are you okay?" Derek sounded concerned.

Stiles sighed. "I'm good. The bond-thing is still confusing and I can't imagine, how this all comes through to you. But I'll figure it out."

"Let me know, if you need help. Maybe we can find something in Peter's books or Deaton's."

"That sounds good, thanks big guy. I should be back home tomorrow evening."

"Have you seen the news today?"

Stiles frowned in thought. "Not really, I helped Darcy and Jane packing and got on the road. Why, what's wrong?"

Derek sighed. "I don't know, what's going on, but there was a terrorist-attack yesterday in Malibu and they're saying, that Tony Stark is dead."

"Wait WHAT?!" Stiles pulled over, slamming onto the breaks. "No, what the hell happened?!"

"Your friend Happy was injured in an explosion caused by a terrorist-group, I'm sure you heard of this Mandarin guy? Stark told them his adress on television and his house got blown up."

Stiles buried his head in his free hand. "Fuck." He was beginning to shake. This couldn't be happening.

"Stiles, they haven't found his body yet and you know, the media won't have all the information. So don't give up, yet. Okay? Deep breaths. You should try to contact SHIELD first or Miss Potts. Come on, you need to breathe."

Stiles gulped in some air, trying to controll his breathing. Why hadn't anyone called him? Why would Tony tell them his adress? Nothing made sense! And how bad were Happy's injuries? And, oh god. Pepper!

"Oh, fuck. Derek, I-I, oh fuck."

"Come on, keep breathing. In, and out. Okay, you're doing fine, allright?"

After a few minutes, he had better controll about his breathing.

"Okay, so. Thanks Derek. For the help and you know. For calling and telling me."

"Of course. Be careful, okay? Don't let anyone blow you up, you hear me?"

"Yeah, no. Learned my lesson on that one." Stiles chuckled. "And I thought Tony did too."

"You know he's crazy, right?"

"Yeah, I know. But I always thought he was the good kind of crazy, you know?"

Now Derek chuckled. "Of course, you did."

"Okay, I'm gonna make some calls and see, if I can help. Can you tell my Dad that I will call him, as soon as I know, what's going on? And the others?"

"I will. Take care Stiles and call, if you need anything."

"Thanks. Bye Derek."

"Bye."

Stiles tipped his head back and slumped down in his seat, exhausted from his panic-attack and terrified for his friends. This was a nightmare. Time to get to the bottom of this. If Tony was alive, there was one person who knew.

He grabbed his phone and made the call, hoping they would pick up.

"Tony Stark's phone, Pepper Potts speaking." She sounded so tired and hopeless.

"Pepper, this is Stiles. I... I just heard what happend. I'm so sorry and I know that doesn't help but I could be there tonight and..."

"Oh! Stiles, honey, he's not dead."

"...you could tell me how to help and- wait, what?"

"He's not here but he's not dead either, but we can't tell anyone. Stiles, he's going after the Mandarin by himself."

"But he just got blown up! Why not ask his team for help?!"

Pepper sighed loudly. "I don't know. He thinks it's personal because of Happy. And I haven't heard of the rest of the team."

"What about SHIELD? Do they have a plan for the Mandarin?"

"I haven't heard from SHIELD either. I don't think, they're involved in the investigation at all. God, I miss Phil."

Stiles was confused. No SHIELD was possible, terrorist-attacks could be handled by any of the other alphabet-soup-agencies, but after one of the Avengers was attacked and possible killed, he thought their involvement would be inevitable.

"This is all so weird, Pepper. But I want to help you."

"And I appreciate that, Stiles. But I don't think, that there is anything you can do here.", Pepper sighed. "Maybe you can get some answers from SHIELD or maybe you can get a hold of Rhodey?"

"Yeah, okay. I'll see what I can find out. Take care Pepper and call me if there's any nes, please."

"I will. Say Hi to Lydia and your Dad from, when your home. And try to enjoy your time off."

"No promises."

Pepper laughed softly. "Okay, I gotta go. Bye Stiles."

"Bye Pepper."

Stiles dropped his phone on the passenger seat and stared at the desert. There wasn't much, he could do, except making some calls. Tony was alive, the world was still turning and terrorists were not really his problem. There were enough agencies prepared to deal with this. And he had faith in Tony.

Time to go home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
